Speak about Annanova – the world’s first virtual newsreader. (MB - p.22, t/s 2).

Newspapers in Britain

If you get on a bus or catch a train in Britain, especially during the morning and evening ‗rush hour‘, when most people travel to and from work, you will see a lot of people with their heads in a newspaper. More daily newspapers, national and regional, are sold in Britain than in most other developed countries. On an average day two out of three people over the age of 15 read a national morning paper; about three out of four read a Sunday paper. There are about 135 daily papers and Sunday papers, 2,000 weekly papers and nearly 100 papers produced by members of ethnic minorities (60 of which are Asian papers). A lot of people buy a morning paper, an evening paper and a couple of Sunday papers so it is not surprising to learn that national newspapers have a circulation of 15.8 million copies on weekdays and 17.9 million on Sundays.

The press caters for a variety of political views, interests and levels of education. Papers are generally divided into 'quality' papers which are serious with long, informative articles, and 'popular' papers known as tabloids because of their smaller size. Tabloids are less serious and contain more human interest stories than news. In the 1980s a new quality paper, The Independent, and a new tabloid, Today, were introduced. Today had pictures and pages in colour and that started a fashion; now most tabloids are in colour. Newspapers are almost always financially independent of any political party. Nevertheless, during general election campaigns many papers recommend their readers to vote for a particular political party. The paper's editor usually writes an open letter called a ‗leader‘ to the readers. Ownership of the national, London and regional daily newspapers is concentrated in the hands of large press publishing groups. In the early 1990s the government‘s Broadcasting Bill aimed to pass laws to prevent too much media ownership being in the hands of one individual or organisation.

More about the Press

Besides the daily newspapers, there are a number of Sunday newspapers, many of which are connected with the ‗dailies‘, though not run by the same editor and staff. The Sunday papers are larger than daily papers and usually contain a greater proportion of articles concerned with comment and general information rather than news. The national daily and Sunday papers have enormous circulations (the largest in the world) running into several millions of readers in certain cases. The economics of newspaper publishing in Britain and in particular their reliance on advertising revenue have, in recent years, led to the closing down of several newspapers; their circulations would have been considered large in many other countries, but they were insufficient to ensure the life of a national newspaper in Britain. Of the Sunday papers, the Observer and the Sunday Times are the best known; their literary and artistic reviews are particularly prized, especially among the more highbrow members of the community. Several Sunday newspapers now publish a magazine supplement in colour.

Speak about Annanova – the world’s first virtual newsreader. (MB - p.22, t/s 2).

3. Why do teens see the world as a smaller place than their grandparents did? What examples are there of the power of the Internet with regard to: a) buying and selling? b) getting information? c) social networking? Is there any sphere of life where people still prove to be more efficient than computers? What is it? Why is it so? (MB - p.26-31)

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