Use of definite article with names of newspapers

Question

In a previous post fedorqui posed the question ¿Se debe escribir artículo delante de una palabra extranjera que ya lo contiene en su lengua? which referred to (mostly) newspaper titles from other languages which already contain the definite article. This raised in my mind the question of how we talk about Spanish language (SL) newspapers and magazines.

In some cases the name already contains the definite article so we say

Leo un artículo en El País
Leo un artículo en La Tercera

But it seems that if there is no article in the title we do not add it. For instance the SL Wikipedia refers to the paper simply as Clarín without adding "el" before it. So I assume I would say:

No he leído nunca un artículo en Clarín

I also notice that the sports paper As has a feature which it calls La chica de As and not del As.

Answer 1

With the names of the newspapers (and brands in general) happens the same as with every common name, you must not use the article when speaking about them in a general way:

Yo fumo Ducados.

Yo sólo conduzco Toyotas.

Yo soy lector de ABC.

Nonetheless, you must use an article when speaking about a given unit.

El ABC de hoy.

In your example, la chica de As refers to a girl representing the newspaper as an entity. If it were la chica del As, it could be a girl picked for today's newspaper (la chica del As de hoy).

But wait, because you can also say yo soy lector del ABC, so what's happening here? In fact, this question is similar to the question about whether putting an article before years: en 2007 or en el 2007? Both are valid because the second one is a short version of en el año 2007. With the newspaper is the same: el ABC is el periódico ABC. So you can say esa noticia la leí en Clarín and esa noticia la leí en el [diario] Clarín.

The trick is, some newspapers names already have an article in the name. So to avoid a cacophony, we suppose the article is already given and do not add another one.

Answer 2

It is absolutely correct. The trick here is to notice that the names of the newspapers that you mention include the articles (i.e. the article is part of the names, so it is included always).

As a native speaker, this morning "he leído un artículo en El Pais, he visto una noticia de El Mundo, y me he asustado al ver una imagen en Público; sin embargo, la misma imagen no era tan terrible en la portada de La Razón. Curiosamente, la imagen ni siquiera aparecía en ABC"