A middle-market newspaper is one that attempts to cater to readers who want some entertainment from their newspaper as well as the coverage of important news events. Middle-market status is the halfway point of a three-level continuum of journalistic seriousness; uppermarket or "quality" newspapers generally cover hard news and down-market newspapers favor sensationalist stories. In the United Kingdom, since the demise of Today (1986–95), the only national middle-market papers are the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, distinguishable by their black-top masthead (both use the easy-to-carry tabloid paper size), as opposed to the red-top mastheads of down-market tabloids. The best known American mid-market papers are USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York Post and the New York Daily News.[1]
