Warner Bros's Harry Potter website's news and events page is called "The Daily Prophet" after the fictional paper.
Warning: Spoilers Follow
The Prophet was the Ministry's main tool in their smear champaign aganist Harry and Dumbledore. Nosy Rita Skeeter spent Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire writing horrible stories with the help of her photographer, Bozo. Her last declared that Harry was "disturbed and dangerous."
Though Rita was blackmailed out of her job by Hermione, the Ministry used this article as their basis for their smear champain aganist Harry. They made Harry out to be an attention seaking prat, and snuck snide coments about him into the Prophet. The Prophet declared Dumbledore was losing his mind in his old age, failing to mention the reason he lost some of his honors was because Cornelius Fudge was paranoid Dumbledore was ploting aganist him.
After Fudge admited Lord Voldemort had returned, the Prophet changed, instead calling Harry, "a lone voice of truth." The Prophet even bought Harry's interview in The Quibbler, which ironically enough, he did with none other than Rita Skeeter.
The Quibbler may be seen as a foil to the Prophet. The Prophet has comcercialized nature and prints stories for the money. The Quibbler prints stories not for money, but the ideaology of sharing important news. Ironically enough, neither the newspaper or the magazine are very acurate; the Prophet's stories are twisted to make them seem more exciting and the editor of The Quibbler is so open-minded that many of the stories are very absurd.