Submitted by Sara Feldman on the 2012 spring semester program in London, England…
Since my arrival to London, I have found the importance of newspapers a particularly interesting aspect of the United Kingdom. Additionally, I was exceptionally taken aback to see free newspapers in print, as well as the numerous different publications available, free and commercial. In the mornings and evenings on my walk to the local underground, numerous diverse people will be handing out the City AM, the Evening Standard, and the Metro or I’ll walk into a shop and see numerous publications for sale. The newspapers range from broadsheets, to mid-market, to tabloids such as the Daily Mail, the Daily Star, the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Mirror, the Sun, the Telegraph, the Times, and the Daily Telegraph.
The majority of these newspapers are written in either a more right-winged or left-winged style with journalists not afraid to share his/her thoughts on a topic, which is rare in the United States’ print media. In addition, in one of my courses, the professor stated that the sales of the lowest profit making UK newspaper would not even compare to the most profitable newspapers in the United States. Even though print media in recent years has seen a decline in revenue, the circulation numbers in the United Kingdom astonish me. The most popular paper, the Sun, has over three million readers. Compare that to the numbers in the United States, and one has to wonder why the United States does not have as many readers as the United Kingdom? Is it that the United Kingdom is affected by other nations due to EU, or that the majority of Americans are relying on other forms of media to get his/her information? I am curious to find out.