A daily newspaper is a publication published every day of the week except Sundays and public holidays. It may be printed on paper or in electronic form, and may be delivered free or for a subscription fee to households within its market area. It is primarily an advertisement-supported medium, although it may also carry information, editorial opinion or commentary.
It is common for newspapers to have a wide variety of news, information, and entertainment content, including politics, sports, business, science, arts, culture and religion. Some newspapers are nationally or internationally distributed, while others are mainly local in scope and content. Newspapers may be aimed at a particular socioeconomic or demographic group, such as businesspeople, families, sports enthusiasts, or women. A newspaper’s format can vary from a broadsheet to a tabloid, and its size can be varied as well.
Most daily newspapers are owned by corporations and financed primarily by advertising, with some support from subscriptions or newsstand sales. In the United States, the overall manager of a newspaper is called the publisher. Larger papers often have departments devoted to editing, production/printing, circulation, and advertising, as well as more general departments such as accounting, human resources, and information technology.
In its 20th-century heyday, the New York Daily News was a brawny metro tabloid known for its crime and corruption coverage; it was the inspiration for the fictional daily newspaper of the 1994 movie “Clark Kent and Lois Lane.” Founded in 1919, it is currently the ninth highest-circulation newspaper in the United States and is based at 4 New York Plaza in downtown Manhattan. It is a competitor of Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, and its current owner, Tribune Publishing, now branded as tronc, has taken steps to distinguish the Daily News from other newspapers in the city by emphasizing its liberal political leanings and positioning it as an anti-Trump counterpoint to the Post’s conservative editorial line.
A weekly newspaper may be a supplement of a daily paper, or may exist as a separate entity. Unlike daily newspapers, weekly publications are not obligated to cover current events or the latest developments in a given topic; they can instead focus on in-depth coverage of topics that are of interest to a readership that is less interested in the latest breaking news. Examples of this type of newspaper include regional and national weekly magazines, business newspapers and community-based weekly newspapers, such as those focusing on entertainment or local politics.
A daily or weekly newspaper can have different sections, such as the main news section, entertainment, and classified ads. Some newspapers have a special focus on sports or business, and some may publish books as well as print and online versions of the newspaper itself. In addition, many newspapers have web sites and apps that allow people to access their content from mobile devices. The term newspaper can also refer to the editorial staff of a specific publication, or to the entire organization that publishes the newspaper.