Simon Constable
There are only two real national dailies in the U.S.: The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. (The New York Times, owned by the New York Times(NYT Quote - Cramer on NYT - Stock Picks), likes to think of itself as a national paper, but to my mind, it's only half-national because its distribution is not widespread outside the Northeast.)
The rest of the country is littered with one-paper towns. Contrast that with the U.K., my native land -- and home to one of the most competitive newspaper markets in the world. It's the place where Murdoch really cut his teeth in the news business. He owns a highbrow paper (The Times, which he saved when he took it over in 1981), and a lowbrow but uber-high-circulation one (The Sun). Each day, those two papers have a knock-down, drag-out fight with the other national dailies to attract readers: The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Mirror, The Independent and The Daily Star. That list doesn't include the large regional papers such as The Yorkshire Post, The Journal, The Scotsman, or the The Evening Standard, plus a list of local papers as long as your arm. Without a doubt, the harsh competition has led to a healthy mosaic of news products that entice readers every day. It's been this way for a long time, and my friends and family routinely read more than one paper. That shouldn't surprise anyone. It's a basic tenet of liberal capitalism that competition creates innovation, resulting in better products and services for the consumer and typically better returns to shareholders. But you'd think it was news to those in the news business.
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