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In 2008, facing one of the biggest slumps in sales to hit the newspaper business in the new millennium, The New York Times was forced to sell off part of its prestigious building. Yet months later, with the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, its sales jumped by 35%, albeit just for a day. It seemed that epochal events, those “where were you when…?” moments, still needed newspapers to capture them for posterity.
People were beginning to grasp that the Internet was taking over the news space, somewhere that until a few years previously was still the preserve of printed newspapers and magazines. The first newspapers began to shut around this time, but it wasn’t until ten years later, between 2019 and 2022, that the decline of print newspapers reached its nadir.
In the US alone, the period 2005–2022 saw the closure of 2200 newspapers, many of these the only source of local news in rural and remote areas; it left a void that the web, despite its widespread reach, has not been able to fill, because of both the digital divide and the lack of resources required for following and reporting stories.
According to a study published by Northwestern University in 2023, the population of Texas has grown by 50% since 2005, but the state has lost 65% of its journalists in the same period.
The same study argues that the loss of newspapers, especially small and independent titles, has led to more political polarisation and disinformation, partly because there are now fewer journalists on the ground checking facts and sources.
A similar story is playing out around the world: sharply falling sales are forcing major news publishers to seek alternative channels, as well as invest in online operations that often offer different content to their print editions.
At a time when many titles face an uncertain future, we wanted to celebrate newspapers with a deep dive on their history, content and graphic design. After all, despite their current travails, newspapers continue to be a powerful presence in the modern media landscape.
The birth of the newspaper
The first printed newspaper on record was published in Venice, where in 1563 weekly newssheets began to be produced. They were known as “gazzette” or gazettes because they cost one “gazeta” – a small domination Venetian coin. In Europe, from the early 1600s onwards, the first true, multi-page newspapers emerged, mainly in France and Germany.
Official gazettes started appearing in major European cities, often promoted by authorities who saw in them a means to control what news was published and when. Meanwhile, underground newsletters and newspapers espousing revolutionary ideas flourished, their publishers engaged in a constant battle against government censorship.
When censorship was relaxed in the following century, newspapers spread further, including in America.
It was the technological innovations of the 1800s that turned the newspaper into a means of mass communication: ever faster printing presses meant that thousands of sheets could now be printed quickly and cheaply. In 1814, The Times acquired a press that could print 1100 pages an hour.
As literacy levels grew, newspapers soon became the main source of news. Different titles targeted different readers: some adopted a more simplistic and sensationalist style aimed at mass appeal; others courted a more educated and influential readership by providing sober analysis of politics, finance and foreign affairs.
Billions of readers
According to a report from the World Association of News Publishers, daily newspapers were read by roughly 2.5 billion people worldwide in 2015. What’s more, overall circulation was actually up by 1% that year, with growing readership in Asia making up for falling sales in America and Europa.
Today, the world’s most-read newspaper is Tokyo-based Japanese daily Yomiuri Shinbun, which boasts a circulation of over 9 million, a number that would make most European papers green with envy. In fact, of the top ten most-read newspapers worldwide, nine are found in Asia (China, Japan and India specifically), and only one in Europe: that paper is German tabloid Bild, which continues to float around the 2 million copy mark (in 2002 that number was 5 million…).
Formats and styles
Format matters in the newspaper business. Until about 20 years ago, the world could be divided into two: those who knew how to hold and fold a broadsheet newspaper, and those who didn’t, leaving behind a crumpled mess after reading.
The broadsheet format datesback to the 1700s and, while varying by a few centimetres from country to country and paper to paper, it still has essentially the same dimensions today. The format is associated with highbrow, authoritative titles and has enough space for six to nine columns and large headlines. In the United States, the traditional dimensions are 381 x 578 cm, although some papers have slightly different sizes: for example, The New York Times measures 305 x 559 cm and The Wall Street Journal 305 x 578 cm.
The other common newspaper format is the tabloid, which is almost a third smaller than a broadsheet at 260 x 388 cm (just shy of A3 size) and can accommodate up to five columns on one page. Tabloid size was traditionally favoured by the popular press in Britain, but in recent years has also been adopted by “quality” newspapers, keenly aware that readers find a compact size easier to read, especially on public transport.
Graphic design for news
Print newspapers follow long-established conventions in their layout: they’re subdivided into columns, have a hierarchy of headlines and headings, feature few images and use well-defined fonts. Colour printing arrived in the 1980s, allowing tabloids to print front-page snaps of celebrity scandal in glorious technicolour.
Content is organised in the same way every day: in the British press, for example, the front pages are dedicated to current affairs, while the back pages are given over to sport.
As well as headlines, newspapers use a range of devices to arrange information on the page and keep readers engaged. These include pullquotes, interesting quotations taken from the story and enlarged and positioned within the text, and standfirsts, copy that links headlines tostories.
The font is another key design element for a newspaper. Indeed, one of the world’s most-used fonts, Times New Roman, was originally commissioned for The Times.
A paper’s title, known in the trade as the masthead, is generally positioned at the very top of the front page. In the UK, some titles in the popular press have traditionally printed their masthead in white type over a red background to make it stand out.
The date is usually printed beneath the masthead. Indeed, the idea that newspapers should record the exact date of events has become one of the trappings of modernity. In fact, until the 1600s, this function was performed by annals, which were usually compiled by people close to power, as was the case in Ancient Rome or the Vatican, and by chronicles, public journals kept by monks, priests and government officials. A newspaper’s date places it in time and determines when it should be read by: for most people, it makes little sense to read yesterday’s paper – or worse – the day before’s. In the past, old newspapers were a valuable everyday resource and reused for all manner of things, from starting fires to drying shoes and wrapping fish and chips.
Alive and kicking in the digital age
Though newspapers may seem like relics of a bygone era, their versatility and vitality mean they remain a crucial mass media channel.
What’s more, trusted titles like The New York Times and The Guardian have embraced modernity and created engaging digital editions to offset declining sales of print editions.
The newspaper business might be going through a tricky transition, but there is every sign that the strongest titles will survive and thrive. The future of newspapers has yet to be written…
