In Australia and New Zealand, the expression sausage-wrapper has been colloquially used as a contemptuous appellation for a newspaper that the speaker regards as downmarket.

This expression occurred, for example, in the following from the column Red Hot, published in the Tribune (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Wednesday 30^th January 1963 [No. 1,290, page 3, column 5]:

The Sydney sausage-wrappers have revelled in the Bogle, Chandler deaths ever since New Year’s Day, over a period in which newspaper sales are usually in the doldrums.
They have seized on every morsel of “news”, real or imagined, to wring the last ounce of sensationalism out of the incident and the maximum number of fivepences out of the public.
But, as public interest (and presumably sales) began to flag, the “Sunday Mirror” tried to restore interest (and sales) with completely unfounded and highly provocative speculation about political murder and Soviet agents.
At worst, such articles could pave the way for a political frame-up. At best they could only divert the police from finding the real solution to the case. Obviously, these factors count little with the sales-hungry “Sunday Mirror.”
Everyone should register their disgust in the strongest way possible.

—Cf. also:
– how ‘tabloid’ became a journalistic word;
– the Page-Three girl of the British tabloid The Sun;
– origin of the British journalistic term ‘red top’.

With one exception (from the USA—cf., below, quotation 1), all the early occurrences of the expression sausage-wrapper that I have found are from The Australian, Windsor, Richmond, and Hawkesbury Advertiser (Windsor, New South Wales, Australia), and refer to an unnamed rival newspaper which was also published in Windsor.

The earliest occurrences of the expression sausage-wrapper that I have found are as follows, in chronological order:

1-: From The Toledo Chronicle (Toledo, Iowa, USA) of Thursday 3^rd September 1874 [Vol. 8, No. 36, page 2, column 3]:

The bologna sausage wrapper across the way when speaking of the Chronicle last week says that it has lost “one hundred subscribers in the last few weeks.” The assertion is a gross, premeditated, unmitigated, bald untruth. The Chronicle has not lost a half dozen subscribers since the first issue of the Times bantling. He further states that the “most familiar sound” in the Chronicle office is “Stop my paper.” The last assertion is a basic lie and the “Sweitzer kase” editor knew it at the time he wrote it.

2 to 8-: From the column Stray Leaves, made up of unconnected paragraphs, by “The Gleaner”, published in The Australian, Windsor, Richmond, and Hawkesbury Advertiser (Windsor, New South Wales, Australia):

2-: Of Saturday 6^th November 1880 [Vol. 19, No. 478, page 2, column 6]—a few words are missing from the original copy:

A SAUSAGE-WRAPPER, called a newspaper, published in this country, is carried on in an original style. If any person desires that any little fake should not appear in the rag, no matter how much good [might?] accrue therefrom, he can just tip somebody and all will be well. How nicely this paper does its duty to society! To what hath [the?] Fourth Estate descended?

3-: Of Saturday 18^th November 1880 [Vol. 19, No. 479, page 2, column 3]—the meaning of cor in “Windsor cor’s effusion” is obscure (it perhaps stands for correspondent):

This is a pun from the sausage-wrapper; it appears in the Windsor cor’s effusion: “Certainly as only one member is required under the new Act (which I think is against blunder) one must be licked.” That paragraph has been electioneering, without a doubt.

4-: Of Saturday 18^th December 1880 [Vol. 19, No. 484, page 2, column 4]

It is said that for balderdash and mendacity the sausage-wrapper stands alone.

5-: Of Saturday 25^th December 1880 [Vol. 19, No. 485, page 2, columns 3 & 4]:

The Windsor ink-slinger for the Sausage-wrapper, in writing of the “breaking up of St. Joseph’s,” says, “An exhibition of work done by the pupils were exhibited, which were much admired.” Well, that’s about as good a burlesque on English as I’ve seen.
[…]
It is extremely sultry. There’s a line for the Sausage-wrapper!

6-: Of Saturday 1^st January 1881 [Vol. 19, No. 486, page 2, column 5]—the meaning of cor’s con is obscure:

“Markets at the Windsor wharf this week were brisk, being in anticipation of Christmas.” That slightly mixed up sentence appears in Windsor “cor’s con” to the Sausage-wrapper of Saturday. His effusion abounds with like Lindley Murrayism [cf. note].

7-: Of Saturday 8^th January 1881 [Vol. 19, No. 487, page 2, column 4]:

The sausage-wrapper contained its usual quantity of inane jargon last week.

8-: Of Saturday 15^th January 1881 [Vol. 19, No. 488, page 2, column 5]:

Rain was around a few this week. Another gag for the Sausage-wrapper.

9-: From Things in General, by “Rambler”, published in The Australian, Windsor, Richmond, and Hawkesbury Advertiser (Windsor, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 15^th January 1881 [Vol. 19, No. 488, page 2, column 4]:

Pitt Town presented quite a gay appearance—parti-coloured banners floated in the wind from every eminence […]. Festoons of ferns spanned the road at various points, and altogether the prospect caused a lump to rise in my throat, and a beating around my heart, that to a disinterested person I must have appeared as though I had been reading the Sausage-wrapper.

10-: From Tittle-Tattle, published in The Australian, Windsor, Richmond, and Hawkesbury Advertiser (Windsor, New South Wales, Australia) of Saturday 29^th January 1881 [Vol. 19, No. 490, page 2, column 3]:

The Parramatta Sausage-wrapper said that a dead pig, belonging to Mr. Onus, also a dead calf, was to be seen floating about in the lagoon from whence the inhabitants of Richmond draw their water supply. Now, I was anxious to test the truth of this statement, and made inquiries. [&c.]

The expression sausage-wrapper was soon introduced into New Zealand. The earliest occurrence that I have found is from Our Sydney Letter, published in The Akaroa Mail, and Banks Peninsula Advertiser (Akaroa, Canterbury, New Zealand) of Friday 13^th May 1881 [Vol. 5, No. 504, page 2, column 7]—founded in 1880, The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine published in Sydney, New South Wales:

Fine weather, in general, and warm for the time of year, is prevalent; we have had a long summer, and want some bracing air for a while to enable us to fortify our disabled constitutions for the endurance of another reign of tropical heat, and those—(but perhaps it is better not to swear) mosquitoes, flies and other insects unmentionable to ears polite, which keep us tossing and fretful during the long sultry summer nights, and turn us out in the morning with a hunted feeling and care worn visages, to unwillingly greet the over-affectionate “glorious orb of day.” I fancy this last is rather a fair specimen of “penny a lineing,” and worthy of the Temora Herald or the Evening News, which latter named paper, is called by the Bulletin, “the nightly sausage wrapper.”

Note: Lindley Murray (1745-1826) was an American grammarian, whose English-language grammar books were used in schools in the USA, and in Britain and its colonies. For example, the following is from a review of a grammar book by William Greatheed Lewis, published in the Sydney Gazette, and New South Wales Advertiser (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) of Monday 16^th July 1827 [Vol. 25, No. 1,373, page 2, column 6]:

The most popular work on the study of the English language in our schools, is Lindley Murray’s grammar.