Depending upon your teaching situation, you may from time to time use newspapers as the basis for a discussion and/or reading class.
My method is to set the reading as homework. The class time is spent going over the more difficult vocab and discussing the issues. I then set a writing homework based upon the discussion points. Hence we end up with a nice 4 skills approach plus vocabulary lesson.
The hardest part is finding an interesting article at the right level. But now I know where to look, a decision can be made in seconds.
http://www.jamaby.com
Here you will find articles updated in some cases hourly, about a wide variety of subjects. The easiest Newspaper articles are graded *** 3 and target mid-intermediate students rising to a **** 4 Upper Intermediate and a ***** 5 Advanced.
Its worth a look and could save you some time and effort.