Newspaper of record

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A "newspaper of record" is a colloquial term that generally refers to a newspaper that meets at least one of two criteria:

  1. high standards of journalism, the articles of which establish a definitive record of current events, for use by future scholars, and/or
  2. compliance with the legal requirements necessary to be recognized by the government as permitted to carry public or legal notices and have the notices be recognized as being made public by publication in that newspaper. Newspapers qualifying under this provision are sometimes also referred to as a newspaper of public record.

In its more common meaning, a newspaper of record is generally any public newspaper that has a large circulation and whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered professional and typically unbiased.

Newspapers of record are usually found internationally at newsstands as representative of the publishing country's news. Newspapers of record generally have strong editors and proprietors, and are allowed to hold independent views from those of their proprietor.

[edit] Controversy

Some editors of top Western newspapers consider the term obsolete and meaningless, when used in its strict, "record keeping" meaning. In that meaning, the term is considered a legacy of a time when newspapers were required to print official bulletins, shipping schedules, and the like, before the advent of the more literary forms of modern journalism. Daniel Okrent, at the time the public editor of the New York Times, wrote on April 25, 2004[1] that his paper is no longer a newspaper of record, and that this change is to be welcomed. In his view, the journalism of a "newspaper of record" is "as much stenography as reporting, as much virtual reprinting of handouts (in the form of verbatim transcripts of unexceptional speeches) as provocative journalism." John Geddes, the managing editor of the New York Times, expressed this even more strongly: "I don't think there can be a 'paper of record.' The term implies an omniscient chronicler of events, an arbiter that perfectly captures the significance and import of a day in our lives. I don't work at that place."

[edit] Broadsheet, compact and tabloid

In a number of countries newspapers of record have generally been broadsheet, although now some of these publications have switched or are planning to switch to a tabloid/compact format, partially as a cost-cutting measure but also to appeal more to the commuter (as the smaller sizes are more suitable to reading on public transport).[citations needed]

[edit] List of newspapers of record

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Newspapers that meet one or both of the abovementioned criteria to be considered a "newspaper of record" include (classified by language):

[edit] Newspapers of record in English, by country

[edit] Australia

[edit] Bermuda

[edit] Canada

[edit] Egypt

[edit] Hong Kong

[edit] India

[edit] Ireland

[edit] Israel

[edit] Lebanon

[edit] Malaysia

[edit] New Zealand

[edit] Pakistan

[edit] Philippines

[edit] Russia

[edit] Singapore

[edit] South Africa

[edit] United Arab Emirates

[edit] United Kingdom

[edit] England

[edit] Scotland

[edit] Wales

[edit] Northern Ireland

[edit] United States

Because of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions such as Near v. Minnesota, the government does not (and can not) define certain papers as having a right to print, or otherwise promote, restrict, or license newspapers. Therefore, in the U.S. a newspaper of record is generally held to be any public newspaper that has a large circulation (in many states, public notices are required to be published in a paper "of general circulation"), professional editorial and news-gathering functions, and generally unbiased/objective reporting.

There are provisions whereby a newspaper may file an application to be recognized by the local government as a newspaper of public record for the purpose of publishing legal notices. This is generally done for revenue purposes, as certain types of legal publications (such as ficticious name registrations, mortgage and trust deed foreclosure and notices dealing with a lawsuit) may require publication in a newspaper that is not merely a de facto newspaper of record, but one that has specifically registered with the government as one and been recognized as such.

This is why, despite its having a large circulation, a newspaper such as The National Enquirer is not considered a newspaper of record (its news-gathering functions are not considered professional, nor are its stories considered unbiased, or even factual), while a paper such as the Washington Post, with a smaller circulation, is generally considered a newspaper of record.[citation needed]

Many U.S. daily newspapers having a publication of 500,000 or 1,000,000 and above would typically qualify as newspapers of record.[citation needed] Examples of some newspapers that many would regard as appropriate "newspapers of record" would likely include:

[edit] Others

[edit] Newspapers of record in Arabic, by country

[edit] International

[edit] Egypt

[edit] Israel

[edit] Lebanon

[edit] Newspapers of record in Dutch, by country

[edit] Belgium

[edit] The Netherlands

[edit] Newspapers of record in French, by country

[edit] Canada

[edit] France

[edit] Lebanon

[edit] Switzerland

[edit] Newspapers of record in German, by country

[edit] Austria

[edit] Germany

[edit] Switzerland

[edit] Newspapers of record in Spanish, by country

[edit] Argentina

[edit] Bolivia

[edit] Chile

[edit] Colombia

[edit] Costa Rica

[edit] Dominican Republic

[edit] Guatemala

[edit] Mexico

[edit] Nicaragua

[edit] Peru

[edit] Spain

[edit] United States

It could be said that for the Spanish-speaking population on the west coast, La Opinion is the newspaper of record. It is based in Los Angeles.

[edit] Venezuela

[edit] Newspapers of record in Chinese, by territory

[edit] People's Republic of China

  • The People's Daily: National Note that it qualifies chiefly because it is a newspaper of public record, i.e. that the PRC government uses it to publish legal notices.

[edit] Republic of China (Taiwan)

[edit] Hong Kong

[edit] North America

[edit] Bulgarian newspapers of record

[edit] Danish newspapers of record

[edit] Finnish newspapers of record

[edit] Greek newspapers of record

[edit] Hebrew newspapers of record

[edit] Italian newspapers of record

[edit] Japanese newspapers of record

[edit] Korean newspapers of record

[edit] Norwegian newspapers of record

[edit] Serbian newspapers of record

[edit] Swedish newspapers of record

[edit] Polish newspapers of record

[edit] Portuguese newspapers of record

[edit] Turkish newspapers of record

[edit] Urdu newspapers of record

[edit] References

  1. ^ THE PUBLIC EDITOR; Paper of Record? No Way, No Reason, No Thanks, The New York Times, 25 April 2004
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