According to Wikipedia the newspaper riddle is a riddle joke or conundrum in English that begins with the question:
Q: What is black and white and red all over?
The traditional answer, which relies upon the identical pronunciation of the words "red" and "read", is:
A: A newspaper.
Mac E Barrick believes this riddle to be "perhaps the most common example of a folk riddle collected in the United States in the twentieth century", pointing out that between 1917 and 1939 it appeared in 15 collections of folk riddles, and in a further six between 1939 and 1974.
Alternative answers to the riddle exist, where red is used as a colour, parodying the canonical form of the riddle. Example answers include:
"a chocolate sundae with ketchup on top"
"a crossword done in red ink"
"a penguin with sunburn"
"a zebra with too much lipstick"
"an embarrassed dalmatian"
"a skunk painted red"
"a communist nun"
"a panda holding its breath"
"the Morning Star"
"a very bad balance sheet"
There are darker versions too that we will not repeat.
Such answers are "adequate, but not clever", because they lack the homophonic pun.
One twist on the riddle is
Q. What is red and white and black all over?
A. Santa when he's come down the chimney
Also note
What's black when you get it, red when you use it and white when you're through with it? Charcoal