The ''Wakefield Express'' is the newspaper serving the

City of Wakefield The City of Wakefield is a local government district with the status of a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Wakefield, the largest settlement, is the administrative centre of the district. The population of the City of ...

district in

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It was established in 1852 and was the subject of a centenary film directed by

Lindsay Anderson Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading-light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for h ...

in 1952. The newspaper is owned by

Johnston Press Johnston Press plc was a multimedia company founded in Falkirk, Scotland, in 1767. Its flagship titles included UK-national newspaper the '' i'', ''The Scotsman'', the ''Yorkshire Post'', the ''Falkirk Herald'', and Belfast's ''The News Letter'' ...

and edited by Mark Bradley. After 155 years of publication as a

broadsheet A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long Vertical and horizontal, vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner (format), Berliner and Tabloid (newspaper format), ta ...

, it changed to a tabloid format in March 2007. The newspaper summarises content from other local newspapers such as the ''

Pontefract & Castleford Express The ''Pontefract & Castleford Express'' is a local newspaper covering the towns of Pontefract and Castleford in Wakefield District, West Yorkshire, northern England. The newspaper is owned by National World. It is based in Front Street, Ponte ...

''.

Literacy campaign

The newspaper launched its "Read On" literacy campaign in 2006, prompted by statistics which showed that over 1,700 Wakefield adults cannot read. The campaign was backed by

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

and

Bridget Jones Bridget Rose Jones is a fictional character created by British writer Helen Fielding. Jones first appeared in Fielding's ''Bridget Jones's Diary'' column in ''The Independent'' in 1995, which did not carry any byline. Thus, it seemed to be an actu ...

author

Helen Fielding Helen Fielding (born 19 February 1958) is an English novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of the fictional character Bridget Jones, and a sequence of novels and films beginning with the life of a thirty something singleton in Lo ...

, and organised a Wakefield Book Day in March 2007 and provided reading material for primary school leavers worth £10,000. The campaign culminated at an event in

Wakefield Cathedral Wakefield Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of All Saints in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, is a co-equal Anglican cathedral with Bradford and Ripon Cathedrals, in the Diocese of Leeds and a seat of the Bishop of Leeds. Originally the pa ...

References

Wakefield Weekly newspapers published in the United Kingdom Publications established in 1852 1852 establishments in England Newspapers published in Yorkshire {{UK-newspaper-stub