Anewspaper of record is a major nationalnewspaper with largecirculation whoseeditorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative and independent; they are thus "newspapers of record by reputation" and include some of the oldest and most widely respected newspapers in the world. The number and trend of "newspapers of record by reputation" is related to the state ofpress freedom andpolitical freedom in a country.[1][2]
It may also be a newspaper authorized to publishpublic or legal notices, thus serving as anewspaper of public record. A newspaper whose editorial content is directed by the state can be referred to as anofficial newspaper of record, but the lack of editorial independence means that it is not a "newspaper of record by reputation". Newspapers of record by reputation that focus on business can also be callednewspapers of financial record.[1][2]
Parisheadquarters ofLe Figaro, France's centre-right newspaper of record (public record and by reputation)
A "newspaper of public record", orgovernment gazette, refers to a publicly available newspaper that is authorized by a government to publish public or legal notices.[3] It is often established bystatute or official action and publication of notices within it, whether by the government or a private party, is considered sufficient to comply with legal requirements forpublic notice.[4] Such gazettes may have minimal or no editorial content (opinion articles), and are focused on public notification of state services and state decisions; an example isLatvia'sLatvijas Vēstnesis.[5]
In some jurisdictions, privately owned newspapers may register with the government to publish public and legal notices, or be otherwise eligible to publish such notices (terms used may include "newspaper of general circulation" among others).[6][7][8] Likewise, a private newspaper may be designated by thecourts for publication of legal notices, such as notices offictitious business names, if judicial and statutory standards are met.[9][10] These are sometimes called "legally adjudicated newspapers".[11]
The term "newspapers of public record" can also denote those owned and operated by a government that directs their entire editorial content. Such newspapers, while pejoratively termed "state mouthpieces", can also be called "official newspapers of record", independently of whether they publish legal notices – distinguishing them from a gazette whose primary role is to publish notices, as their entire content represents the official view and doctrine of the state. This kind of official newspaper is distinct from newspapers of record by reputation, and is liable to fail the reputation criterion due to its governmental control. The word "official" can be used to distinguish them from "newspapers of record by reputation". Examples include Russia'sRossiyskaya Gazeta,[12] North Korea'sRodong Sinmun,[13] and China'sPeople's Daily.[14]
First edition ofNeue Zürcher Zeitung (1780), the world's oldest newspaper of record by reputation
The second type of "newspaper of record" (also "journal of record", or in Frenchpresse de référence) is not defined by formal criteria, and its characteristics vary. The category comprises newspapers that are considered to meet highstandards of journalism, including editorial independence (particularly from the government and from its owners), accountability (mistakes are acknowledged), attention to detail and accuracy, and comprehensiveness and balance of coverage;[15] they are regarded internationally (as well as in their own country/region) by major global outlets.[16][17]
Although many countries are proud of their newspapers of record by reputation, in some countries they face an openly hostile state or political system that tries to suppress their press freedoms. Examples include Turkey'sCumhuriyet, where many of the staff have been imprisoned;[19] Panama'sLa Prensa, where staff have been shot and the owners forced into exile;[20] and Venezuela'sEl Nacional,[21] which was forced out of print when the state seized its assets (seeexamples of fallen newspapers of record).[22]
The term is believed to have originated among librarians who began referring toThe New York Times as the "newspaper of record" when it became the first U.S. newspaper in 1913 to publish an index of the subjects it covered.[18][23] In recognition of that usage,The New York Times held an essay contest in 1927 in which entrants had to demonstrate "The Value ofThe New York Times Index and Files as a Newspaper of Record".The New York Times, and other newspapers of its type sought to chronicle events, acting as a record of the day's announcements, schedules, directories, proceedings, transcripts, and appointments. By 2004,The New York Times no longer considered itself a newspaper of record in the original, literal sense.[24]
Over time, historians relied onThe New York Times and similar titles as a reliable archival and historical record of significant past events, and a gauge of societal opinions at the time of printing. The term "newspaper of record" evolved from its original literal sense to that newer meaning.[23]
The former headquarters ofEl Nacional, Venezuela's long-standing newspaper of record,[21] which was seized by the state in 2018 and forced out of newsprint production[22]
Over time, some established newspapers of record by reputation have lost their status due to financial collapse, take-over or merger by another entity that did not have the same standards or allowed increased government control and suppression of the paper's editorial independence. The existence of newspapers of record by reputation is an aspect of the level ofpress freedom andpolitical freedom in a country, with major first-world democracies having several such newspapers (e.g. United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, Italy and Japan); in contrast, countries that have seen a decline in their newspapers of record by reputation can represent a decline in levels of personal and political freedom (e.g. Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and Cambodia).[1]
Examples include:
Zimbabwe'sThe Herald, lost its status as an established newspaper of record when it was eventually taken over byRobert Mugabe'sZanu-PF party.[188]
Venezuela's newspaper of record,El Nacional,[21] was forced out of print by the state in 2018, and its headquarters was given to a high-ranking official.[22]
London-basedpan-Arab newspaper of record,Al-Hayat, ceased in 2020 due to financial and political pressures.[189][190]
In Cambodia, theHun Sen administration forced both of Cambodia's newspapers of record out of business using contrived tax fines that resulted in the closure ofThe Cambodia Daily in 2017,[191][192] and the sale ofThe Phnom Penh Post to a close ally of the Hun Sen administration in 2018.[193][194]
Latvian newspaperDiena saw its established status as a newspaper of record diminish after a 2010 takeover, with theHistorical Dictionary of Latvia (2017) listing it as "holding tenuously to a popular newspaper-of-record sentiment at home and abroad" due to "questions of ownership and if said owners influence newspaper content".[195]
Népszabadság, Hungary'sde facto newspaper of record, ceased publication in 2016 due to political and financial pressure.[196]
^abTheStraits Times andNew Straits Times were qualified as "semi-official newspapers of record" in theEncyclopedia of Journalism (2009) as "each is tightly connected to the dominant political party of their respective countries".[124]
^abcdefghijJohnston, Donald H. (2003). "Chapter: Freedom of the Press in Latin America".Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications. Vol. 2.Academic Press. p. 143.ISBN978-0-12-387670-6. Retrieved9 May 2022....the newspaper of record in any country is compulsory reading for political, business, and cultural leaders and the most prestigious such papers in the region, organized into the Grupo de Diarios America, are La Nacion (Buenos Aires, Argentina), O Globo (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), El Tiempo (Bogota, Colombia), El Mercurio (Santiago, Chile), El Comercio (Ecuador), Reforma (Mexico), El Nuevo Dia Interactivo (Puerto Rico), El Comercio (Lima, Peru), El Pais (Montevideo, Uruguay), and El Nacional (Caracas, Venezuela)
^Vigón, Mercedes (12 July 2013)."Journalism ethics is 'personal and non-transferable'" (Interview). Interviewed byInternational Press Institute.Archived from the original on 27 November 2022. Retrieved10 April 2019.In spite of the readership crisis in the United States, The New York Times is a newspaper of record in many countries, as is Le Monde in France or La Nación in Argentina.
^Beezley, William H. (September 2021).Latin America 2020-2022 (54th ed.).Rowman & Littlefield. p. 433.ISBN978-1-4758-5643-9.The Nassau Guardian, founded in 1844, is the country's newspaper of record and one of the oldest continuously published newspapers in the Western Hemisphere.
^Roy, Anupam Debashis (January 2020).Not All Springs End Winter. Adarsha. p. 144.ASINB097ZL8NFW.Reports on the demands of the students that were published on the Daily Star, often considered Bangladesh's newspaper of record, ....
^Field, Thomas C., Jr. (2014). "Preface".From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era. The United States in the World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.doi:10.7591/cornell/9780801452604.001.0001.ISBN978-0-8014-5260-4.LCCN2013038571. p. xii:Bolivia's newspaper of record, El Diario{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Fabricio, Roberto (16 April 1992)."Brazilian Officers Issue Manifesto".Sun-Sentinel. Archived fromthe original on 18 February 2015. Retrieved10 October 2013.The statement, published on Tuesday by O Estado de Sao Paulo, Brazil's newspaper of record, was datelined in Fortaleza, a mid-sized city in northeastern Brazil.
^Buchanan, Carrie (March 2009). Gasher, Mike (ed.)."Sense of Place in the Daily Newspaper".Aether: The Journal of Media Geography.4: 62–84 [70].[T]he Toronto-based Globe and Mail has had the kind of success in Canada that the New York Times had enjoyed in the U.S., as the leading 'newspaper of record' with a national readership.
^Rathbone, John Paul (3 June 2013)."The history and politics of Colombian media".Financial Times.Archived from the original on 25 January 2023. Retrieved6 May 2022.Luis Carlos Sarmiento, who has a $14bn fortune, according to Forbes, in 2012 bought El Tiempo, Colombia's largest-circulation daily and the newspaper of record.
^"Terror of the Black Hand (Part 1)".The Irish Times. 9 March 2001.Archived from the original on 14 March 2023. Retrieved6 May 2022.On January 19th in Bogota, the city section of El Tiempo, Colombia's newspaper of record, ran a report which sent shivers through most urban readers.
^Rockwell, Rick; Janus, Noreene (2003)."Chapter 6: Costa Rica, the Exception That Proves the Rule".Media Power in Central America.Urbana and Chicago:University of Illinois Press. pp. 113–114.ISBN0-252-02802-3. Retrieved2 February 2025.Although still regarded as a conservative paper,La Nación has emerged as Costa Rica's most popular publication, and it is often mentioned as one of the best newspapers in Latin America. ... UnlikeLa Nación, which is a colorful yet serious newspaper of record ...
^Buckman 2007, p. 234: "The dean of Dominican newspapers isListín Diario, founded in 1889 and still the most-read newspaper in the country, with a reported circulation of 88,000."
^Pozo Vélez, Homero; Knapp, Gregory (2003)."Media and publishing in Ecuador".Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved9 February 2025.El Comercio ("Commerce"), published in Quito, is perhaps the country's most prestigious newspaper; it provides detailed, serious coverage of political, economic, environmental, and cultural news, together with commentary by a number of well-known columnists.
^Buckman 2007, p. 222: "Some elite dailies are over a century old and have established global reputations for journalistic excellence. Some of the more venerable areLa Prensa (1869) andLa Nación (1870) of Buenos Aires, Argentina;O Estado de São Paulo (1875) of São Paulo, Brazil;Jornal do Brasil (1891) andO Globo (1925) of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;Listín Diario (1889) of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic;El Mercurio (1900) of Santiago, Chile;El Comercio (1839) of Lima, Peru;El Universal (1916) andExcélsior (1936) of Mexico City;El Tiempo (1911) of Bogotá, Colombia;El Universal (1909) andEl Nacional (1943) of Caracas, Venezuela;El Telégrafo (1884) of Guayaquil andEl Comercio (1921) of Quito, Ecuador;El Diario (1904) of La Paz, Bolivia; andLa Prensa Libre (1889) andLa Nación (1946) of San José, Costa Rica."
^abcBallarini, Loïc (2020). "The Local Press as a Medium to Create Diversion". In Ballarini, Loïc (ed.).The Independence of the News Media: Francophone Research on Media, Economics and Politics. Global Transformations in Media and Communication Research. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.doi:10.1007/978-3-030-34054-4.eISSN2634-5986.ISBN978-3-030-34054-4.ISSN2634-5978. p. 133:The French newspapers of record that are reputed around the world for their supposed authority on France and French matters are national papers published in Paris: Le Monde (centre left) and Le Figaro (conservative right), as well as Libération (centre left), which has seen a significant decline in its readership numbers, and Mediapart (left, investigative journalism), which is the only pure play company considered to be a newspaper of record.
^"France profile".BBC News. 12 January 2014.Archived from the original on 29 January 2014. Retrieved24 January 2014.Le Monde - respected national daily, considered to be France's newspaper of record
^abPfanner, Eric (13 March 2011)."Gloves Off in German Media Scramble".The New York Times.Archived from the original on 17 July 2022. Retrieved11 May 2025.'leitmedium [de]' in Germany, ... using a term that translates as 'leading medium', and describes the role of what is sometimes called a 'newspaper of record' ... Frankfurter Allgemeine and Süddeutsche Zeitung and the weekly Die Zeit.
^Johnson, Wendell G.; Barbe, Katharina (2022). "Media and Popular Culture".Modern Germany. Understanding Modern Nations. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.ISBN978-1-4408-6454-4.LCCN2021042057.Die Welt, published in Berlin, is often considered the German newspaper of record.
^"Greece's agony: What have we become?".The Economist. 30 June 2011.Archived from the original on 21 December 2022. Retrieved9 May 2022.Alexis Papahelas, editor of Kathimerini, Greece's newspaper of record, has coined the term "coalition of the unwilling" to describe the array of ultra-leftist and ultra-traditionalist forces bent on blocking reform.
^Rockwell, Rick J.; Janus, Noreene (2003). "Guatemala's Struggle with Manipulation".Media Power in Central America. The History of Media and Communication. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.ISBN0-252-02802-3.LCCN2002010964. p. 102:Prensa Libre, the traditional newspaper of record, represents business interests—increasingly, liberal business interests that might oppose the central government.
^Roberts, Shearon (2015). "Then and Now: Haitian Journalism as Resistance to US Occupation and US-Led Reconstruction".Journal of Haitian Studies.21 (2).Santa Barbara, California:University of California, Santa Barbara: 243.Project MUSE609563.Ernest Chauvet, the patriarch of Haiti's current paper of record,Le Nouvelliste, was considered to be Haiti's leading professional journalist because of his training at theBrooklyn Daily Eagle.
^Bjarnason, Egill (201).How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island. Penguin. p. 38.ISBN978-0-14-313588-3.The interview appeared in Morgunblaðið, Iceland's newspaper of record ...{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^"Indonesia: Media Landscape".Reporters Without Borders. 8 December 2021. Retrieved9 May 2022.They include the daily Kompas, the newspaper of record, with a circulation of more than half a million, and the weekly Tempo, which has built a solid reputation for investigative journalism.
^"Iran Media Guide".FRONTLINE - Tehran Bureau.Archived from the original on 12 May 2015. Retrieved31 May 2015.
^Mercille, Julien (March 2014). "The role of the media in fiscal consolidation programmes: the case of Ireland".Cambridge Journal of Economics.28 (2). Oxford University Press: 289.doi:10.1093/cje/bet068.ISSN0309-166X.JSTOR24694930.The Irish Times is often referred to as 'Ireland's newspaper of record'
^Dwan, David (April 2009)."The Irish Times, book review".The London Standard. Archived fromthe original on 27 May 2014. Retrieved26 May 2014.Today, the Irish Times is one of Ireland's most authoritative journals – the newspaper of record for political and intellectual elites from Mayo to Monkstown.
^Levey, Gregory (21 August 2008)."Pushing right-wing American politics — in Israel".Salon.Archived from the original on 5 December 2022. Retrieved24 January 2014.In the past few months, Haaretz, Israel's paper of record, has run a series of articles expressing misgivings about outside influence.
^Rosen, Brant (11 May 2010)."Alan Dershowitz and the Politics of Desperation".The Huffington Post.Archived from the original on 26 February 2017. Retrieved24 January 2014.Recent polling, alongside articles in both the New York Times and the Israeli paper of record, Ha'aretz, indicate that the American Jewish community no longer feels represented by our so-called representatives - if we ever did.
^Gorenberg, Gershom (September 2002)."The Thin Green Line".Mother Jones.Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved24 January 2014.In late January, the declaration ran as an ad in Ha'aretz, the national paper of record...
^Backus, Emily; Edgecliffe-Johnson, Andrew (20 August 2007)."Confindustria plans Il Sole float".Financial Times.Archived from the original on 25 April 2024. Retrieved25 April 2024.Il Sole 24 Ore is widely regarded in Italy as the business paper of record
^Beezley, William H. (September 2021).Latin America 2020-2022 (54th ed.).Rowman & Littlefield. p. 266.ISBN978-1-4758-5643-9.The Daily Gleaner, established in 1834, is one of the oldest continually published newspapers in the hemisphere and is still Jamaica's newspaper of record.
^Benesch, Susan (21 March 2013)."The Kenyan Elections: Peace Happened".The Huffington Post.Archived from the original on 26 July 2017. Retrieved10 October 2013.Kenya's newspaper of record, the Daily Nation, published a banner headline "Never Again" over an editorial with a sharp, eloquent warning
^Hanssen, Jens; Safieddine, Hicham (2016). "Lebanon's Al-Akhbar and Radical Press Culture: Toward an Intellectual History of the Contemporary Arab Left".Arab Studies Journal.24 (1). Washington, D.C.: Arab Studies Institute:192–227.ISSN2328-9627.JSTOR44746852. p. 201:Al-Nahar became the Lebanese paper of record in the 1950s
^Elsey, Brenda; Nadel, Joshua H. (2019). "The Boom and Bust of Mexican Women's Football".Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America. Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowment in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press.doi:10.7560/310427.ISBN978-1-4773-1859-1.LCCN2018037054. p. 237:Excelsior, Mexico's paper of record
^Cooper, Matt (2015). "Playing the long game".The Maximalist: The Rise and Fall of Tony O'Reilly. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan.ISBN978-07171-6723-4.The New Zealand Herald was a paper with daily paid-for sales of over 250,000; it had an image of something of a 'paper-of-record'
^Ette, Mercy (2013)."Chapter Six: The Press and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria".Media/Democracy: A Comparative Study.Newcastle upon Tyne:Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 104.ISBN978-1-4438-4839-8. Retrieved1 February 2025.... The Guardian newspaper, a Nigerian prestige newspaper and a publication of record.The Guardian, like some other publications in Nigeria, still exercises considerable influence on policy-making, despite dwindling newspaper circulations, and, as a "favourite of the intellectuals", is one of the most influential national titles.
^Midttun, Atle; Coulter, Paddy;Gadzekpo, Audrey; Wang, Jin (December 2015). "Comparing Media Framings of Climate Change in Developed, Rapid Growth and Developing Countries: Findings from Norway, China and Ghana".Energy & Environment.26 (8). Sage Publishing:1271–1292.Bibcode:2015EnEnv..26.1271M.doi:10.1260/0958-305X.26.8.1271.ISSN2048-4070.JSTOR90006539. p. 1277:Aftenposten, Norway's newspaper of record and the newspaper with the widest circulation, is privately-owned and has broad coverage of news, culture, public policyand business.
^Rashid, Ahmed (4 July 2018)."The assault on Pakistan media ahead of vote".BBC.Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved3 December 2020.Dawn is the unofficial newspaper of record - indispensable for businessmen, diplomats and military officers alike - and known for its influential editorials that affect Pakistan's image worldwide.
^Folch, Christine (2019). "Currency".Hydropolitics: The Itaipu Dam, Sovereignty, and the Engineering of Modern South America. Princeton Studies in Culture and Technology. Vol. 39. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.doi:10.2307/j.ctvdf0j6c.ISBN978-0-691-18659-7. p. 81:ABC Color, the Paraguayan paper of record
^Claudio, Lisandro E. (2017). "Salvador P. Lopez and the Space of Liberty".Liberalism and the Postcolony: Thinking the State in 20th-Century Philippines. Kyoto CSEAS Series on Asian Studies. Vol. 19. Singapore: NUS Press.ISBN978-981-4722-52-0. p. 144:the anti-Marcos weekly Mr. & Ms. [...] would become the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the present day paper of record
^"Philippine Daily Inquirer".Library of Congress.Archived from the original on 7 May 2022. Retrieved7 May 2022.The Philippine Daily Inquirer, popularly known as the Inquirer, is an English-language newspaper in the Philippines. Founded in 1985, it is often regarded as the Philippines' newspaper of record.
^Wheeler, Douglas L.; Opello, Walter C. Jr. (2010).Historical Dictionary of Portugal (3rd ed.).The Scarecrow Press. p. 189.ISBN978-0-8108-6088-9.The major Lisbon newspapers are Diário de Noticias (daily and newspaper of record) ....
^Eaman, Ross (2009).The A to Z of Journalism.The Scarecrow Press. p. 237.ISBN978-0-8108-7154-0.The most prestigious newspaper for print journalists is the Diario de noticias, Portugal's "newspaper of record", followed by the more popular Jornal de noticias and the staunchly independent Publico.
^Carter, Erin Baggott; Carter, Brett L. (2023)."1.1.1 Propaganda as Persuasion: The Republic of Congo".Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. p. 5.ISBN978-1-009-27122-6. Retrieved4 February 2025.La Semaine Africaine has long been regarded as Congo'svieille dame: its 'gray lady,' a reference toThe New York Times. Founded as a church newsletter in the 1950s,La Semaine Africaine became Congo's newspaper of record during the democratic transition of the early 1990s. It now publishes twice weekly and, although its journalists self-censor, it remains independent.
^Light, Duncan; Young, Craig (2009). "European Union enlargement, post-accession migration and imaginative geographies of the 'New Europe': media discourses in Romania and the United Kingdom".Journal of Cultural Geography.26 (3). Oxfordshire:Taylor & Francis: 294.doi:10.1080/08873630903322205.The first is Adevărul ('the Truth') one of Romania's most serious newspapers (equivalent to a UK 'broadsheet') with something of a reputation as a 'newspaper of record.'
^"Danas". VOXeurop. 18 January 2017. Retrieved2 January 2018.
^abSchiller-Merkens, Simone; Balsiger, Philip (October 2019).The Contested Moralities of Markets.Emerald Group Publishing.ISBN978-1-78769-120-9.In addition, we consulted all 302 newspaper articles in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (the newspaper of record in the German-speaking part of Switzerland), and Le Temps (the newspaper of record in the German-speaking part of Switzerland), that covered...
^Enderlin, Serge (5 November 2020)."La Fondation Aventinus rachète le quotidien suisse 'Le Temps'" [The Aventinus Foundation acquires the Swiss daily newspaper 'Le Temps'].Le Monde (in French). Geneva.Archived from the original on 12 September 2023. Retrieved11 May 2025. [daily newspaperLe Temps, the paper of record of the Francophone press in Switzerland]
^Ruiz, Todd (16 March 2022)."Bangkok Post trashed for broadcasting Russian ambassador's 'propaganda'".Coconuts Bangkok. Coconuts Media. Retrieved19 February 2024.The newspaper of record's decision to uncritically broadcast a closed session with Russia's ambassador to Thailand yesterday has been met with anger and disbelief.
^Kittikhoun, Alounkeo; Kittikhoun, Anoulak (2022)."Chapter 2: Navigating the Cold War".Small Countries, Big Diplomacy Laos in the UN, ASEAN and MRC. Taylor & Francis. Footnote 26.ISBN978-1-003-12540-2.The Thai newspaper of record,The Nation admitted the three villages belonged to 'Lao communist administration.'
^Breiner, Laurence (November 2006)."Laureate of nowhere".Caribbean Review of Books.10.Archived from the original on 15 June 2022. Retrieved10 May 2022...that although the Guardian is the nation's [Trinidad and Tobago] newspaper of record...
^"The New York Times".Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 May 2023.Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved23 June 2022.... long the newspaper of record in the United States and one of the world's great newspapers.