Black, White and Red All Over Trivia Quiz

Answer: Strasbourg

Usually known simply as the "Relation", the full title of the world's first newspaper was "Relation aller Fürnemmen und Gedenckwürdigen Historien" (which translates to "Collection of all Distinguished and Commemorable News"). It was first published in German in 1605 in Strasbourg, which was then part of the Holy Roman Empire and is now in eastern France.

The first paper published outside the Holy Roman Empire was based in Basel in Switzerland and began in 1610. By 1620 there were also newspapers based in Frankfurt, Berlin, Amsterdam and Antwerp. The first French-language newspaper, La Gazette, began in Paris in 1631. By 1661 there were newspapers in Swedish, Polish, Spanish and Italian, and the first English-language paper, the Oxford Gazette, opened in 1665. A year later, production moved east and it changed its name to the London Gazette, which is still published today.

Answer: The Belfast News Letter

Still published six days a week, the "News Letter" is one of Northern Ireland's principal newspapers along with the "Irish News" and the "Belfast Telegraph". It is still legally called the "Belfast News Letter" although the city name no longer appears on the masthead.
The alternatives are all current newspapers that began not long after American independence. The "Herald", Glasgow's main newspaper, was first published in 1783. The "Times" began two years later, in 1785, and the "Scotsman" dates back to 1817.

Answer: Le Monde

Print circulation of newspapers is of course variable, but official figures indicate that "Le Monde" had the highest paid circulation in 2022, of around 470,000 copies daily. "Le Figaro" was second with 350,000, then the national edition of "Le Parisien", "Aujourd'hui en France" ("Today in France") at 250,000. The left-wing paper "Libération" was in sixth place, with around 96,000.

Answer: Manchester

The "Guardian" began as a local paper which, for its first 138 years, carried the name "The Manchester Guardian" on its masthead. National circulation for the "Guardian" reached an all-time high at around 494,000 in 1987 but by 2013 this had dropped to just over 200,000. (This was less than 10% of England's most-read daily, the "Sun" which was still selling around 2.4 million copies daily, down from a 1987 high of 3.99 million.) As of June 2012, though, the "Guardian" online edition was the third most widely read in the world.

Answer: Czech Republic

Founded in 1893 in Brno, the largest Moravian city and the second largest in the Czech Republic, "Lidové Noviny" is a centre right/conservative daily with a circulation of around 73,000. It is often familiarly known just as "Lidovky" ("The People").

Answer: The Plain Dealer

Established in 1842, "The Plain Dealer" has a readership of around 750,000 on weekdays and one million on Sundays, so it is estimated that more than 75% of the adult residents of the Greater Cleveland region read the Sunday edition, which is the highest readership percentage anywhere in the Americas. During the week, that figure drops to 63.26%, leaving it second behind only the "New York Times". Of the alternatives, "The Courant" is the regional newspaper in Hartford CT. Founded in 1764, it is one of the oldest surviving dailies in the U.S. Founded in 1850, "The Deseret News" is the regional daily in Salt Lake City UT, whilst readers in St Louis MO have woken up to "The Post-Dispatch" since 1878.

Answer: Cairo

First published in 1828, "Al-Waqa'i'a al-Masriya" ("Egyptian Affairs" or "Egyptian Events" is the Middle East's first indigenous newspaper. Originally published in both Ottoman Turkish and Arabic, you'll need to be able to read Arabic to understand it these days. With a circulation of one million daily (and 1.2 million on Fridays), "Al-Ahram" ("The Pyramids") is the most widely-read Egyptian newspaper. Published in Arabic at home, "Al-Ahram" is also aimed at the international audience so it produces editions in both English and French too.

Answer: Japan

With both morning and evening editions, the conservative/centre right "Yomiuri Shimbun" published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka and other major Japanese cities has a daily circulation in excess of 14 million. Despite its huge circulation, Japan still supports five other daily newspapers - the left-leaning "Asahi Shimbun" (8 million daily circulation), the centre-left "Mainichi Shimbun" (4 million), the neo-liberal "Nihon Keizai Shimbun" (3 million), the nationalist "Sankei Shimbun" (2.1 million) and the "Akahata" ("Red Flag"), the daily newspaper of the Japanese Communist Party (1.7 million).

Answer: Melbourne

Published since 1854, "The Age" was founded by three New Zealand businessmen who set up shop in Melbourne. With a circulation of 190,000 on weekdays and 275,000 on Saturdays, "The Age" vies with its sister paper (the "Sydney Morning Herald" which has 185,000 weekdays and 290,000 Saturdays) as Australia's most widely read.

Answer: The Wall Street Journal

With a worldwide circulation approaching 2.4 million, the "Wall Street Journal" is comfortably the best-selling daily newspaper in the U.S. This compares with a daily circulation of 2.2 million for the London-based "Financial Times", which targets a similar market. Of the alternatives, "USA Today" is also available worldwide.

It has a circulation of around 1.67 million daily. Perhaps surprisingly, "The New York Times" sells even more than that - around 1.87 million, and 2.3 million on Sundays. (Neither the "Wall Street Journal" nor "USA Today" publish a Sunday edition.) Of the regional newspapers, the "Washington Post" is the fifth-largest in the country, with a circulation of 475,000. (The "Los Angeles Times" with a 655,000 circulation, the "San Jose Mercury News", the "New York Daily News" and the "New York Post" all have circulations in excess of 500,000.)