I guess, from the second sentence that "awash in the smudged newsprint" refers to the blurry black and wight photos in the old newspaper where you couldn't quite discern what was in the photo. The key word is smudged which means smeared and blurry. Hope this helps :)

Я читала определение из словаря, мне оно не помогло.

awash (in) 1. covered with (a liquid or something similar) 2. full of [something] The first meaning is literal. The second one is figurative.

Спасибо, Роман. Меня больше всего смутило слово awash.

которыми истекали размазанные страницы газет something like that :)