Newspapers are print media and/or the newsgathering organizations that produce them. Most conventional newspapers are published on a daily or weekly basis, and are meant to inform the general public about recent events, especially public affairs. Besides local, national or international news, papers often carry sports and entertainment features, opinion columns and advertising.
Newspapers may address a general audience, focus on a geographical area, or cover a specialized subject, such as newspapers for a specific profession, industry or interest. Newspapers traditionally are supported by selling advertising space as well as subscription or single-copy sales of the newspapers themselves. Through history, newspapers have sometimes been subsidized by organizations or interest groups, including political parties. Mass-circulation newspapers, such as those evolving in 19th century New York, attempt to appeal to a wider audience (and wider advertising market) than overtly partisan papers.
As the Internet's World Wide Web spread in the 1990s, newspaper companies established Web editions carrying stories from the print edition and, increasing in the next decade, original material. By 2009 this had blurred the distinction between the printed newspaper and the online newspaper. By 2009, some newspapers were shifting from daily print production to daily Web production with weekly printed editions. Some new Web-only publications adopted reporting and writing styles commonly associated with printed newspapers.
Newspaper advertising categories include:
- "display ads" -- rectangular advertisements, often including images, usually for commercial products and services, or for delivery of issue-oriented or political messages.
- "classified ads" -- (brief advertisements, often text-only, presented in column form by topic: items for sale, help wanted, personal messages, etc.
- coupons -- small promotional ads that may be cut or torn out to be redeemed for a discount on a product.
Newspapers are the largest employers of print media.
About 40% of ad revenue for a newspaper comes from classifieds.
National papers include USA Today and the Christian Science Monitor.
Newspapers are a populace's main source of local news.
Editorial pages exist solely to display opinions, usually on political matters. They're kept separate from other areas of the newspaper because the opinions aren't meant to represent the newspaper so much as they are meant as a public forum. An editorial page may consist of political cartoons, letters sent by readers, or a persuasive article.