Talk:Newspaper of record

Would you really consider The Times to be a newspaper of record these days? It is now a tabloid with an unfair bias to the Labour Party! Perhaps The Guardian should be seen as a possible candidate owing to its switch to Berliner and Simon Jenkins joining it - various commentators agree with this suggestion in the press.

Hence I'd suggest moving The Times to possible and bringing the Guardian in as a possible as well.

Regards, --Mrclarke 14:05, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wall Street Journal? Really? Is that not notoriously a politically-driven right-wing ultra-liberal newspaper? Granted that decided political views aren;t necessarily a bar to something being considered a newspaper of record, I'm not sure that the WSJ really has this status.

As for the UK, I think the Guardian probably does.Palmiro 11:06, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Independent a newspaper of record? Ridiculous! It is a left-wing, bordering on far-left, viewspaper! Will delete if no objections. --Mrclarke 07:51, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Independent certainly isn't far-left! I rather doubt that it could be described as left-wing at all. You can't delete it on that basis. Palmiro 18:34, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Do you actually consider it a newspaper of record? --Mrclarke 19:09, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. 'Newspaper of record" seems to be defined here as pretty much the same as what "quality broadsheet" meant while the English ones were all still broadsheets (from the article: it means "a newspaper with high standards of journalism"). In my view, the Independent does fall into that category.

However, my understanding of "newspaper of record" is more something along the lines of "the authoritative newspaper, a newspaper that's widely agreed to be the primary reliable record (or one of a very small number of such) of a country's life and its political life in particular." Not very well-expressed, but perhaps you can see what I'm getting at. And I don't think either the London Independent or the Telegraph would qualify on that basis. But for the moment, that's not the definition that this article's based on. Palmiro 17:06, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with you there. This page has been expanded by many users, who really seem to have added their personal favourites. Neither The Telegraph or The Independent should qualify. I don't know about other countries, but I think these should be included:

UK - The Times, Financial Times (world), The Guardian

USA - The New York Times, (The Wall Street Journal), The International Herald Tribune (world)

Italy - Correro Della Sella

France - Le Monde

Germany - Die Welt

Australia - (The Australian)

India - Times of India.

This page needs a major overhaul in my view. It currently contains every British 'quality' daily! I think that the old definition said something about the newspaper having to be known across the world. In my opinion, the only British newspapers that meet that requirement are the three I have listed. I've bracketed papers I don't know much about - The WSJ and the Australian, and I hope others can tell me if these should qualify. --Mrclarke 19:05, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your suggested procedure. The first step is to find a suitable definition to slot in as the first sentence in the article. Then we can carry out a triage on the claimants to newspaper of record status.

The difference between The Times and the Daily Telegraph, or Le Monde and Le Figaro is exactly the sort of thing we need to point up. Palmiro 19:25, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How about: 'A newspaper of record is an internationally recognised publication, with high standards of journalism and no political bias in its news coverage.' Most on the list would not meet the internationally recognised section or the political bias section, although they have high standards of journalism. --Mrclarke 06:36, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]