The word 报纸 is formed by combining two characters: 报 (bào), which carries the core idea of "reporting" or "news", and 纸 (zhǐ), which means "paper". It is a straightforward compound where the first character describes the primary content or purpose, and the second character denotes the physical material or medium. Together, they create a literal and intuitive concept of "news-paper", directly naming the object by what it is made of and what it contains.