Comparing Top Newspaper Front Pages

In our Copy Editing class today we are doing an exercise to study and comment about newsworthiness. This in the sense of how newspaper editors decide what to put on their front pages.

Using the Newseum website that daily has hundreds of newspaper front pages every day, I selected three of the nation's largest circulating newspaper in the country. They are the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Front page of the LA Times today 

Today's Los Angeles Times front page for Thursday, Jan. 24 has five news stories.

There are three "above the fold" stories. Most prominent is "Trump retreats as Pelosi delays State of the Union." Beneath that time is a story headlined "Cohen Delays Hearing, Citing Threats.” Also above the fold is a report about the just-resolved LA teachers' strike.

The front page is rounded out with a piece about Venezuela's new president receiving support from U.S. President Trump and a column about Tuesday's Oscar nominations.

Today's New York Times

Today's New York Times also has front page stories about the dispute over the president's State of the Union speech, a Venezuela new president story, and one about Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney.

There is also a story about former Vice President Joe Biden getting big bucks for a speech he gave in Michigan- to a group of Republicans, apparently.

There's a science story about gene editing and a report about how computer science has become such a popular major and field of study for college students.

In the mid-center of the NY Times front page is a photograph of dozens of buttons. The caption reads that there is a new Nazi death camp exhibit coming to the Big Apple.

Washington Post front page

The Trump-Pelosi spat also adorns The Washington Post's front page as does the Venezuela story. Both stories are on all three front pages today.

The Post also, below the fold, has a story about Jared Kushner, son in law of President Trump. And there's a piece headlined "Medical tourists return home with a superbug."

This paper today has the fewest number of front page stories with four, compared to the New York Times' six and the five on the front of today's Los Angeles Times.

These three major daily newspapers are instrumental in setting the national news agenda on any given day. If I go home tonight and watch national TV news on CBS, NBC, ABC and/or Fox, CNN and others I would put money on seeing reports about the State of the Union Speech, Venezuela's new president and probably a Michael Cohen update.