Features in a newspaper may include:

• Editorial opinions, criticism, persuation, entertainment and op-eds

• Obituaries

• Comic strips and other entertainment, such as crosswords, sudoku and horoscopes

• Weather news and forecasts

• Advice, gossip, food, and other columns

• Critical reviews of movies, plays, restaurants, etc.

• Classified ads

• Display ads

History

Before movable type

In Ancient Rome, Acta Diurna, or government announcement bulletins, were made public by Julius Caesar. They were carved on metal or stone and posted in public places.

In China, early government-produced news sheets, called tipao, circulated among court officials during the late Han dynasty (second and third centuries AD). Between 713 and 734, the Kaiyuan Za Bao ("Bulletin of the Court") of the Chinese Tang Dynasty published government news; it was handwritten on silk and read by government officials. In 1582 there was the first reference to privately published newssheets in Beijing, during the late Ming Dynasty;Brook, Timothy. (1998). The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22154-0 (Paperback). Page xxi.
In 1556, the government of Venice first published the monthly Notizie scritte, which cost one gazetta., World Association of Newspapers These avvisi were handwritten newsletters and used to convey political, military, and economic news quickly and efficiently throughout Europe, more specifically Italy, during the early modern era (1500-1700CE) — sharing some characteristics of newspapers though usually not considered true newspapers.

Modern era

Newspapers printed with movable type date to the beginning of the 17th century.

Asia

By 1638 the Peking Gazette had switched from woodblock print to movable type.

Europe

Johann Carolus' Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien, published in 1605 in Strasbourg, is often recognized as the first newspaper. Strasbourg was a free imperial city in the Holy Roman Empire; the first newspaper of modern Germany was the Avisa, published in 1609 in Augsburg.

The Dutch Courante uyt Italien, Duytslandt, &c. of 1618 was the first to appear in folio- rather than quarto-size. Amsterdam, a center of world trade, quickly became home to newspapers in many languages, often before they were published in their own country.Stephens, Mitchell, "," Collier's Encyclopedia
The first English-language newspaper, Corrant out of Italy, Germany, etc., was published in Amsterdam in 1620. A year and a half later, Corante, or weekely newes from Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, France and the Low Countreys. was published in England by an "N.B." (generally thought to be either Nathaniel Butter or Nicholas Bourne) and Thomas Archer.

The first newspaper in France was published in 1631, La Gazette (originally published as Gazette de France).
Post- och Inrikes Tidningar (founded as Ordinari Post Tijdender) was first published in Sweden in 1645, and is the oldest newspaper still in existence, though it now publishes solely online.
Opregte Haarlemsche Courant from Haarlem, first published in 1656, is the oldest paper still printed. It was forced to merge with the newspaper Haarlems Dagblad in 1942 when Germany occupied the Netherlands. Since then the Haarlems Dagblad appears with the subtitle Oprechte Haerlemse Courant 1656 and considers itself to be the oldest newspaper still publishing.

The first successful English daily, The Daily Courant, was published from 1702 to 1735.

North America

Untitled watercolor of a man reading a newspaper, about 1863, by Henry Louis Stephens. The paper's headline reports the Emancipation Proclamation.

Front page of The New York Times on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918.

In Boston in 1690, Benjamin Harris published Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. This is considered the first newspaper in the American colonies even though only one edition was published before the paper was suppressed by the government. In 1704, the governor allowed The Boston News-Letter to be published and it became the first continuously published newspaper in the colonies. Soon after, weekly papers began publishing in New York and Philadelphia. These early newspapers followed the British format and were usually four pages long. They mostly carried news from Britain and content depended on the editor’s interests. In 1783, the Pennsylvania Evening Post became the first American daily.

In 1751, John Bushell published the Halifax Gazette, the first Canadian newspaper.

Industrial Revolution

By the early 19th century, many cities in Europe, as well as North and South America, published newspaper-type publications though not all of them developed in the same way; content was vastly shaped by regional and cultural preferences. Advances in printing technology related to the Industrial Revolution enabled newspapers to become an even more widely circulated means of communication. In 1814, The Times (London) acquired a printing press capable of making 1,100 impressions per minute.

Soon, it was adapted to print on both sides of a page at once. This innovation made newspapers cheaper and thus available to a larger part of the population. In 1830, the first penny press newspaper came to the market: Lynde M. Walter's Boston Transcript. Penny press papers cost about one sixth the price of other newspapers and appealed to a wider audience.Bird, S. Elizabeth. For Enquiring Minds: A Cultural Study of Supermarket Tabloids. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992: 12-17.

Impact of television and Internet

By the late 1990s the availability of news via 24-hour television channels and then the Internet posed an ongoing challenge to the business model of most newspapers in developed countries. Paid circulation has declined, while advertising revenue — which makes up the bulk of most newspapers’ income — has been shifting from print to the new media, resulting in a general decline in profits. Many newspapers around the world launched online editions in an attempt to follow or stay ahead of their audience.

However, in the rest of the world, cheaper printing and distribution, increased literacy, the growing middle class and other factors have more than compensated for the emergence of electronic media and newspapers continue to grow.

Categories

While most newspapers are aimed at a broad spectrum of readers, usually geographically defined, some focus on groups of readers defined more by their interests than their location: for example, there are daily and weekly business newspapers and sports newspapers. More specialist still are some weekly newspapers, usually free and distributed within limited areas; these may serve communities as specific as certain immigrant populations, or the local gay community.

Daily

Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, seen in its Hebrew and English editions

A daily newspaper is issued every day, sometimes with the exception of Sundays and some national holidays. Saturday and, where they exist, Sunday editions of daily newspapers tend to be larger, include more specialized sections and advertising inserts, and cost more. Typically, the majority of these newspapers’ staff work Monday to Friday, so the Sunday and Monday editions largely depend on content done in advance or content that is syndicated. Most daily newspapers are published in the morning. Afternoon or evening papers are aimed more at commuters and office workers.

Weekly

Weekly newspapers are common and tend to be smaller than daily papers. In some cases, there also are newspapers that are published twice or three times a week. In the United States, such newspapers are generally still classified as weeklies.

National

Most nations have at least one newspaper that circulates throughout the whole country: a national newspaper, as contrasted with a local newspaper serving a city or region. In the United Kingdom, there are numerous national newspapers, including The Independent, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Observer, The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Daily Express and The Daily Mirror.
In the United States and Canada, there are few national newspapers. Almost every market has one or two newspapers that dominate the area. Certain newspapers, notably The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today in the US, and The Globe and Mail and The National Post in Canada are available throughout the country. In India, were Internet penetration is too low as comparable to other developed countries therefore newspaper like Times of India, The Hindu, Hindustan Times etc are the only source of information for rural and urban people. Large metropolitan newspapers with also have expanded distribution networks and, with effort, can be found outside their normal area.

Reading the newspaper: Brookgreen Gardens in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, United States.

International

There is also a small group of newspapers which may be characterised as international newspapers. Some, such as The International Herald Tribune, have always had that focus, while others are repackaged national newspapers or “international editions” of national-scale or large metropolitan newspapers. Often these international editions are scaled down to remove articles that might not interest the wider range of readers.

As English has become the international language of business and technology, many newspapers formerly published only in non-English languages have also developed English-language editions. In places as varied as Jerusalem and Bombay (Mumbai), newspapers are printed to a local and international English-speaking public. The advent of the Internet has also allowed the non-English newspapers to put out a scaled-down English version to give their newspaper a global outreach.

Online

Diario de Pernambuco, founded in 1825 is the first newspaper in all South America.

With the introduction of the Internet, web-based “newspapers” have also started to be produced as online-only publications, like the Southport Reporter. To be a Web-Only newspaper they must be web-published only and must not be part of or have any connection to hard-copy formats. To be classed as an Online Only Newspaper, the paper must also be regularly updated at a regular time and keep to a fixed news format, like a hardcopy newspaper. They must also be only published by professional media companies and regarded under the national/international press rules and regulations unlike blog sites and other news websites, it is run as a newspaper and is recognized by media groups in the UK, like the NUJ and/or the IFJ. Also they fall under the UK’s PCC rules.

Employment

Job titles within the newspaper industry vary greatly. In the United States, the overall manager of the newspaper — sometimes also the owner — may be termed the publisher. This usage is less common outside the U.S., but throughout the English-speaking world the person responsible for content is usually referred to as the editor. Variations on this title such as editor-in-chief, executive editor, and so on, are common.

Zoned and other editions

Newspapers often refine distribution of ads and news through zoning and editioning. Zoning occurs when advertising and editorial content change to reflect the location to which the product is delivered. The editorial content often may change merely to reflect changes in advertising — the quantity and layout of which affects the space available for editorial — or may contain region-specific news. In rare instances, the advertising may not change from one zone to another, but there will be different region-specific editorial content. As the content can vary widely, zoned editions are often produced in parallel.

Editioning occurs in the main sections as news is updated throughout the night. The advertising is usually the same in each edition (with the exception of zoned regionals, in which it is often the ‘B’ section of local news that undergoes advertising changes). As each edition represents the latest news available for the next press run, these editions are produced linearly, with one completed edition being copied and updated for the next edition. The previous edition is always copied to maintain a Newspaper of Record and to fall back on if a quick correction is needed for the press. For example, both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal offer a regional edition, printed through a local contractor, and featuring locale specific content. The Journal’s global advertising rate card provides a good example of editioning.

Format

The Times of India press on the outskirts of Delhi

Most modern newspapers are in one of three sizes:

• Broadsheets: 600 mm by 380 mm (23½ by 15 inches), generally associated with more intellectual newspapers, although a trend towards “compact” newspapers is changing this.

• Tabloids: half the size of broadsheets at 380 mm by 300 mm (15 by 11¾ inches), and often perceived as sensationalist in contrast to broadsheets. Examples: The Sun, The National Enquirer, The National Ledger, The Star Magazine, New York Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Globe.

• Berliner or Midi: 470 mm by 315 mm (18½ by 12¼ inches) used by European papers such as Le Monde in France, La Stampa in Italy, El Pais in Spain and, since 12 September 2005, The Guardian in the United Kingdom.

Newspapers are usually printed on inexpensive, off-white paper known as newsprint. Since the 1980s, the newspaper industry has largely moved away from lower-quality letterpress printing to higher-quality, four-color process, offset printing. In addition, desktop computers, word processing software, graphics software, digital cameras and digital prepress and typesetting technologies have revolutionized the newspaper production process. These technologies have enabled newspapers to publish color photographs and graphics, as well as innovative layouts and better design.

To help their titles stand out on newsstands, some newspapers are printed on coloured newsprint. For example, the Financial Times is printed on a distinctive salmon pink paper, and Sheffield’s weekly sports publication derives its name, the Green ’Un, from the traditional colour of its paper. The Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport is also printed on pink paper while L'Équipe (formerly L’Auto) is printed on yellow paper. Both the latter promoted major cycling races and their newsprint colours were reflected in the colours of the jerseys used to denote the race leader; for example the leader in the Giro d'Italia wears a pink jersey.

Circulation and readership

A newspaper car in Germany in 1925. Operated by the Ullstein publishing house, it distributed newspapers by road.

The number of copies distributed, either on an average day or on particular days (typically Sunday), is called the newspaper’s circulation and is one of the principal factors used to set advertising rates. Circulation is not necessarily the same as copies sold, since some copies or newspapers are distributed without cost. Readership figures may be higher than circulation figures because many copies are read by more than one person, although this is offset by the number of copies distributed but not read (especially for those distributed free).

Newspaper vendor, Paddington, London, February 2005

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the daily circulation of the Soviet newspaper Trud exceeded 21,500,000 in 1990, while the Soviet weekly Argumenty i Fakty boasted the circulation of 33,500,000 in 1991.

According to United Nations data from 1995 Japan has three daily papers —the Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, and Mainichi Shimbun — with circulations well above 5.5 million. Germany’s Bild, with a circulation of 3.8 million, was the only other paper in that category.

In the United Kingdom, The Sun is the top seller, with around 2.98 million copies distributed daily (late 2008).

In India, The Times of India is the largest-circulation English newspaper, with 3.14 million copies daily. According to the 2009 Indian Readership Survey, the Dainik Jagran is the most-read, local-language (Hindi) newspaper, with 55.7 million readers.

In the U.S., the Wall Street Journal has a daily circulation of approximately 2.01 million, making it the most widely distributed paper in the country.

American newspaper vending machine featuring news of the 1984 Summer Olympics.

A common measure of a newspaper’s health is market penetration, expressed as a percentage of households that receive a copy of the newspaper against the total number of households in the paper’s market area. In the 1920s, on a national basis in the U.S., daily newspapers achieved market penetration of 130 percent (meaning the average U.S. household received 1.3 newspapers). As other media began to compete with newspapers, and as printing became easier and less expensive giving rise to a greater diversity of publications, market penetration began to decline. It wasn’t until the early 1970s, however, that market penetration dipped below 100 percent. By 2000, it was 53 percent.

Many paid-for newspapers offer a variety of subscription plans. For example, someone might want only a Sunday paper, or perhaps only Sunday and Saturday, or maybe only a workweek subscription, or perhaps a daily subscription.

Most newspapers provide some or all of their content on the Internet, either at no cost or for a fee. In some cases, free access is available only for a matter of days or weeks, after which readers must register and provide personal data. In other cases, free archives are provided.

Advertising

right|thumb||300px|A typical 1950s layout of daily newspaper comic strips is seen in this page from the Los Angeles Times (April 22, 1959)
The bulk of newspapers' revenue comes from advertising - the contribution from sales is small by comparison. On average, a newspaper generates 80% of its revenue from advertising and 20% from sales. The portion of the newspaper that is not advertising is called editorial content, editorial matter, or simply editorial, although the last term is also used to refer specifically to those articles in which the newspaper and its guest writers express their opinions.

Newspapers have been hurt by the decline of many traditional advertisers. Department stores and supermarkets could be relied upon in the past to buy pages of newspaper advertisements, but due to industry consolidation are much less likely to do so now. Additionally, newspapers are seeing traditional advertisers shift to new media platforms. The classified category is shifting to sites including craigslist, employment websites, and auto sites. National advertisers are shifting to many types of digital content including websites, rich media platforms, and mobile.

In recent years, the advertorial emerged. Advertorials are most commonly recognized as an opposite-editorial which third-parties pay a fee to have included in the paper. Advertorials commonly advertise new products or techniques, such as a new design for golf equipment, a new form of laser surgery, or weight-loss drugs. The tone is usually closer to that of a press release than of an objective news story.

Journalism

Since newspapers began as a journal (record of current events), the profession involved in the making of newspapers began to be called journalism.

In the yellow journalism era of the 19th century, many newspapers in the United States relied on sensational stories that were meant to anger or excite the public, rather than to inform. The restrained style of reporting that relies on fact checking and accuracy regained popularity around World War II.

Criticism of journalism is varied and sometimes vehement. Credibility is questioned because of anonymous sources; errors in facts, spelling, and grammar; real or perceived bias; and scandals involving plagiarism and fabrication.

In the past, newspapers have often been owned by so-called press barons, and were used either as a rich man’s toy, or a political tool. More recently in the United States, a number of newspapers are being run by large media corporations such as Gannett, The McClatchy Company, Hearst Corporation, Cox Enterprises, Landmark Media Enterprises LLC, Morris Corporation, The Tribune Company, Hollinger International, News Corporation.

Newspapers have, in the modern world, played an important role in the exercise of freedom of expression. Whistle-blowers, and those who “leak” stories of corruption in political circles often choose to inform newspapers before other mediums of communication, relying on the perceived willingness of newspaper editors to expose the secrets and lies of those who would rather cover them. However, there have been many circumstances of the political autonomy of newspapers being curtailed.

Opinions of other writers and readers are expressed in the op-ed (“opposite the editorial page”) and letters to the editors'' sections of the paper.

Some ways newspapers have tried to improve their credibility are: appointing ombudsmen, developing ethics policies and training, using more stringent corrections policies, communicating their processes and rationale with readers, and asking sources to review articles after publication.

Future

The future of newspapers has been widely debated as the industry has faced down soaring newsprint prices, slumping ad sales, the loss of much classified advertising and precipitous drops in circulation. In recent years the number of newspapers slated for closure, bankruptcy or severe cutbacks has risen -- especially in the United States, where the industry has shed a fifth of its journalists since 2001. Revenue has plunged while competition from internet media has squeezed older print publishers.
The debate has become more urgent lately, as a deepening recession has shaved profits, and as once-explosive growth in newspaper web revenues has leveled off, forestalling what the industry hoped would become an important source of revenue. At issue is whether the newspaper industry faces a cyclical trough, or whether new technology has rendered obsolete newspapers in their traditional format.

See also

• List of newspapers (by country)

• List of online newspaper archives

• List of newspapers in the world by circulation

• Above the fold

• African American newspapers

• Alternative weekly

• List of fictional newspapers

• Freedom of the press

• Free daily newspaper

• Graphic design

• Gazette

• Gazetteer

• History of American newspapers

• History of British newspapers

• History of Chinese newspapers

• History of newspapers and magazines

• International Freedom of Expression Exchange

• Journalism

• List of journalism articles

• Magazine

• Mass media

• Muckraker

• News design

• Newspaper National Network LP

• Newspaper Association of America

• Newseum

• Newspaper circulation

• Newspaper wrappers

• Newspaper of record

• Newspapers in the United States

• Newspapers on demand

• Photojournalism

• Printing

• Propaganda model

• Student newspaper

• Telephone newspaper

• Underground press

• Weekly newspaper

• World Association of Newspapers

• Yellow journalism