ABSTRACT
Throughout the 20th century Britain developed a news industry that, generally speaking, flourished. In the early 21st century, the country’s news agenda continues to be set mainly by national newspapers, which are more highly competitive, in terms of breaking news “exclusives” and readership figures, and more truly “national” as a media sector, than their counterparts in other large European countries and in the United States ( Tunstall 1996: 2–3, 7). They cater to the entirety of the British media market, distributed in the four main constituent nations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland that comprise the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to give the country its official title, with a combined population of 61.8 million (Office for National Statistics 2010).
