Ileş Raluca Maria British Cultural Studies 4 semesters January 29, 2009

ADVERTISING IN QUALITY NEWSPAPERS

A quality newspaper is one seeking to provide readers with material that will both

inform and entertain educated readers (Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, The

Observer, etc), as compared with a tabloid which is a newspaper that does not contain

much serious news, and mainly has short articles and photographs.

A quality newspaper is broadsheet in format and focuses on political news, art,

and sport. Broadsheet format is generally associated with more intellectual newspapers,

although a trend towards “compact” newspapers is changing this. Quality newspapers are

called broadsheets because they used to all be massive in size even though some are now

printed in compact or Berliner or Midi format. They are usually printed on inexpensive,

off-white paper known as newsprint. Since the 1980s, the newspaper industry has largely

moved away from lower-quality letterpress printing to higher quality, four-colour

process, offset printing. Also, the latest technologies have enabled newspapers to publish

colour photographs and graphics, as well as innovative layouts and better design.

(Newspaper. 19 January 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper).

Considering the first paragraph, we could say that there is an important factor that

makes the difference between the two types of newspapers: quality. But to judge

journalistic quality triggers more or less the same subjectivity exercise that we are all

used to when we make references about any other creative effort.

Leo Bogart in his article Reflections on Content Quality in Newspapers said “A

great editor of The Times of London observed nearly a century ago: “There has been a

tendency to follow the tastes of the vast number of people who can read at all rather than

of those to whom reading means a high standard of literary and intellectual enjoyment.”

Of Rupert Murdoch’s two national dailies in the United Kingdom, The Sun has five times

the readership of The Times. I doubt if the proprietor considers it to be five times as good

a paper, or even a better paper. He would say, I suppose, that it fills a different market

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niche, satisfies a different sort of reader, and is equally good at what it sets out to do. But

observers who reject circulation size as a criterion of excellence would insist that The

Times, because of its seriousness and authority, provides its public with far better entrée

into the complex and ugly realities that The Sun helps its readers avoid.

(Reflections on Content Quality in Newspapers, 16 January 2009,

http://www.poynter.org/resources/63500/bogart.pdf)

Broadsheets are probably the most common to readers. The Times, the United

Kingdom’s oldest national newspaper, is not the most popular. This falls to the Daily

Telegraph, known affectionately as the Daily Torygraph because of the loyal support to

the Conservative Party. The Independent and The Guardian, together with financial

newspaper The Financial Times (which is not related to The Times in any way), make up

the rest of the broadsheets. It is important to notice, though, that the mass-market tabloids

sell up to four times as many copies as the broadsheets. (Newspapers in the UK: An

Introduction. 19 January 2009, http://www.mediauk.com/article/4)

For a quality newspaper to be a “serious-minded” one, it has to accomplish certain

requirements that are first related to the topics, and the language. Talking about

newspapers, we automatically have to think about the journalistic style. As compared to

other texts belonging to the fictional, epistolary, scientific, administrative, etc styles, the

journalistic text has its characteristics that define it in proportion to these ones. The final

form of the journalistic text is the result of the gathering, selection, hierarchy and

condensation activities of the information. (Gombos, Pregatirea profesionala a

jurnalistului roman. Specializarea in presa sportiva, in Studia Universitatis Babes-

Bolyai,L, 1, 2005, pp 76). Quality newspapers, in order to convince readers of their

quality, have to follow these steps, and especially to take into account the reader’s need

of truthful information. People who read this type of newspaper seek to be informed of

the real problems of their country, of new tendencies in art, new events in sports, in short

they seek the quality of information. Journalism is not all about war and peace, heroism

and catastrophe. It is about the routine of the police blotter, school board debates over the

luncheon menu, the fluctuation of stock prices and all the other routine minutiae of life in

our complex society. (Reflections on Content Quality in Newspapers. 19 January 2009,

http://www.poynter.org/resources/63500/bogart.pdf)

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The most common topics that make the content of quality newspapers are: politics

and government, business and personal finance, sports, science, education, arts and

entertainment, with greater accent on the first ones. The quality newspapers are also

known as “heavies” and they usually deal with home and overseas news, with detailed

and extensive coverage of sports and cultural events. Besides they also carry financial

reports, travel news and book and film reviews. Thus, one of the reasons that quality

newspapers came into being was to circulate news very useful especially for the business

class, but also for those people interested in politics and economics, sports and arts.

A quality newspaper has to take into account certain targets:

Originality of the message: the informing press considers worthy for the

public’s interest only those events which contain new information, of present interest,

which make changes in proportion to a conventionally saturated tradition or which

modifies the common perception of reality.

Intelligibility of the message: a piece of information, as new as it may be,

will not be open to readers unless the text is written in an accessible language. That is

why long sentences are avoided, also abstract words, complex syntactic structures,

inversions that have stylistic functions. To facilitate the retaining of information,

journalists specialized on quality newspapers make the message clear by constructing the

text around key words which play the role of integrating factors.

Psychological depth of the information: the more profound strata of

the human psyche the information reaches, the bigger the possibility of its being retained.

In the case of quality newspapers, a little psychology is a good ingredient, because the

economic, social, and political problems have a lower degree of interest, depending on

how educated the public is. (Gombos, Pregatirea profesionala a jurnalistului roman.

Specializarea in presa sportiva, in Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai,L,1,2005,pp 76-77)

The narrative recounts events, leaving some occurrences out because they are

from some perspectives insignificant, and perhaps emphasizing others. Quality

newspapers give a clear idea of what needs to be said and set it down without pretence or

grandiose design. Thus, with each modest success their credibility increases and so does

the public’s confidence. As a consequence, the competence of newspapers also increases.

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The information is structured taking into account both the system of references of the

public and the functional elements of the event that the narrative presents.

According to the scheme proposed by Roman Jakobson, any act of

communication presupposes the existence of a transmitter, a receiver, and, of course, a

message. For the editing of a journalistic text, there have to be covered a series of stages

and journalists have to stay within the boundaries of the journalistic style. Being

“serious” and “intelligent”, quality newspapers have to show it. They are characterized by

a concentrated syntax constructed with the help of the active, concrete, and clear word,

and also of the objective detail. Words are used denotatively leaving no place for doubt.

This way the message is made as clear as possible and the act of communication end

successfully.

Language in this type of newspaper also has its attributes. As compared to

tabloids, where journalists employ a large variety of colourful adjectives and words, the

journalist writing for quality newspapers has to work with simple words that give a clear

image of what is being recounted. Journalists have to be careful with the language,

because it differs in terms of the purposes they serve. Thus, tabloids or popular

newspapers seem mainly designed for entertainment, with quizzes, competitions,

cartoons and light-hearted human interest stories; the information is very low, and the

instruction is very minor. On the contrary, the quality newspapers put a great value on

information and a lower one on entertainment. Quality newspapers do not use dramatic

language and avoid word play. Their journalists use short sentences and well-known

vocabulary. This makes it easier for a non-native speaker to understand its articles.

(Popular and Quality Newspapers. 20 January 2009,

http://ilias.vhs21.ac.at/2bw/englisch/Czabaun_Jutta/Media%20(newspapers).pdf)

Since language is the main carrier of the message all along, it is of crucial

importance. It distinguishes itself from common language by its own features in

morphology, syntax and rhetorical devices. The function of advertising in quality

newspapers is to provide information, exploit market, and promise the quality. Therefore,

advertisement must pay attention to its impelling language, and the first step is to use

popular and oral language to make it easy to understand and memorize. In what concerns

verbs, linguistic study shows English native speakers tend to use words of Anglo-Saxon

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origin, because native words have comparably stable meaning. In advertising, these

simple words can win the consumers by their exact, effective expression and a kind of

closeness. The following words are the most frequently used: make, get, give, have, see,

buy, come, go, know, keep, look, need, love, use, feel, like, choose, take, start, taste. The

adjectives in advertisement help to build a pleasant picture in the readers’ minds. In

quality newspapers they are used only for this purpose, because their main function is

that of giving their readers new information in a simple style. Syntax also has its own

characteristics. Simple sentences are preferred to complex one. They are more

understandable and forceful. Elliptical sentences do not miss from the picture. They are

incomplete in structure but complete in meaning. Journalists do not make abuse of them

as the message in quality newspapers has to be as clear as possible, and are most

commonly found in headlines. Interrogative sentences and imperative sentences are also

very used in newspaper advertising. Imperative sentences are short, encouraging and

forceful.

As for rhetorical devices, repetition is very much employed to stress certain information.

Similes give the journalists the possibility to compare two unlike things, thus they can

use them to capture the readers’ attention and to make them retain the information easier.

Language in quality newspapers serves the main purpose of conveying the information,

and, as a second purpose, of attracting the readers. (The Language of Advertising in

Newspapers. 20 January 2009, http://www.google.ro)

In the editing of the text, the plan which addresses to the journalistic style

contains everything that can be said about the subject:

Concision: presupposes the elimination of useless words and details, of

useless phrases, of redundancies, equilibrium in the active voice-passive voice rapport,

simplicity, as well as a balanced emphasis.

Avoidance of banalities: presupposes the elimination of the figures of

speech, of clichés and platitudes.

Formulas of legibility: presuppose the use of short phrases and sentences

and of simple words.

Semantics: it is recommended that unfamiliar words, connotations,

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evaluative words and excessive ads be omitted. (Gombos, Pregatirea profesionala a

jurnalistului roman. Specializarea in presa sportiva, in Studia Universitatis Babes-

Bolyai, L, 1, 2005, pp 76-77)

The term newspaper language can be seen as an instance of a particular publicistic

reality, i.e. the specific of general English language in its concrete practical realizations in

the most intensive area of public communication. The notion newspaper language

characterizes the types of communication conditions, which reveal the particular

autonomous function of standard language. In the contents of this basic newspaper genre,

the informative one, language is realized by the system of language signs in their

denotative function characteristic of mainly informative texts. Where there is deliberate

figurativeness of newspaper language two major functions of language are employed: the

communicative one (the one that informs) and the poetic one (the one that describes

things by adding colour to reality – this is done in accordance with the assessment of the

producer of the text). This structuring of newspaper language is motivated by

communicative intentions. (Social changes 1989-1996 and Newspaper Language, 20

January 2009, http://insoliso.hit.bg/KS.html)

In order to decide whether a newspaper is a quality or a popular one, it is not

necessary to read it because we can tell simply by the way it looks. Quality newspapers

are generally bigger with many columns per page. They do sometimes have big headlines

to show the importance of an event, but they do not abound in them. As for the functions

of headlines in quality newspapers, they summarize the content of the article, and

indicate its register and its focus, in comparison with the headlines in tabloids, which try

to attract readers’ attention and indicate the writer’s attitude to the story. They convey

semantic information. As well as real sentences, headlines can be divided in theme, the

big subject, about which the rheme gives new extra information. If a headline contains

the name of a product, the rheme evaluates it and makes it more valuable. Theme choices

indicate the copywriter’s purpose about what represents background information .Here

are some examples of approaching stories right from the headlines in quality newspapers:

Ministers urged to compel jobless to work for benefits (The Independent), Poverty trap

for lone mothers (The Guardian), and tabloids: Jobless Paul in suicide horror (Daily

Mirror), Jail for loving mother who turned to robbery (Daily Express). It can be clearly

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seen that quality newspapers aim at giving information about serious national news,

while tabloids try to attract readers by means of entertainment and stories that apply to

feelings. Quality newspapers are aimed at educated readers. They put emphasis on

national and international news, political comments, cultural events, and the world of

finance. The theme-rheme construction is obvious in the headlines of quality newspapers.

The editorial personality and appeal of a newspaper determines whether it is a

‘popular’ or ‘quality’ product. The editor is in effect the brand manager of the product.

Unless he fully understands the nature of his readers and their reason for buying his

product, they will desert him. Each newspaper has to decide the type of readership it is

aiming for and design the product for excellence in that marketplace. The quality press

attracts a disproportionately high volume of display advertising for upmarket products

because they offer a focused reach of the top end of the socio-economic pyramid with

minimum wastage. The consumer power of the audience also enables quality newspapers

to set relatively higher rates for equivalent space, despite generally smaller circulations.

(Advertising: The Lifeblood of Newspapers, 20 January 2009,

http://dr.ntu.edu.sg/bitstream/10220/606/1/AMIC 87 OCTNOV 33.pdf)

Quality newspapers do not lack images. They may well be an intended or

preferred meaning supplied by whoever has written the article, but this may be or not the

same as how the audience reads the text. When reading newspapers, we can identify a

variety of codes in relation to photographs. As in all types of newspapers, in quality

newspapers photographs may indicate something of what the journalist was trying to say.

Elements like lighting (affects mood and atmosphere), distance, focus (if only part of the

photo is in focus, it draws our attention to its importance), angle (eye-level angles make

the viewing seem more natural; high-angle shots tend to reduce the importance of a

subject, whereas low-angle shots may increase the sense of power or authority of the

subject), camera movement and editing tell much about photographs, their role in articles

and give clues to readers about what is important in the text.

In Britain there are two kinds of quality newspapers: national dailies – The Times,

The Guardian, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, and national

Sundays – The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph, The Independent on

Sunday. Most British people perceive the press in Great Britain as objective, since they

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claim that there is no overt censorship, no overt bias in reporting the news, and that there

is a wide choice of newspapers apart from the national dailies.

(Newspapers in Britain. 20 January, http://eng.1september.ru/2002/08/1.htm)

The Times is the newspaper that most people read. It does not have a great

circulation, but its influence is greater than what its circulation shows. It is a paper read

by lawyers, politicians, and businessmen. It is not an organ of the Conservative Party, but

it is rather conservative in views it expresses.

The Guardian has a slightly higher circulation than the times. It is a liberal

newspaper, known for its campaigning support for “worthy causes” such as education,

medical reform, the problems of aging people, protection for the environment, etc.

The Independent was founded in 1987 and quickly acquired a reputation for its

excellent news coverage, intelligent reports, informal commentaries, in combination with

a balanced sense of humour.

The Daily Telegraph is a very conservative newspaper. It has a circulation twice

as big as that of “The Times”, “The Guardian” or “The Independent”. It has a nickname –

“The Torygraph” after the nickname “Tory” of the Conservative Party. It has a quite

comprehensive news and sports coverage. There are people who say that it has a more

objective reporting of what is happening in the world than any other quality newspaper.

The Sunday Times has a circulation of over a million and an excellent reporting in

eight separate sections: a main news section and others devoted to sports news review,

business, the arts, job advertisements, fashion and travel as well as book reviews.

The Observer is the oldest Sunday paper. It was founded in 1791 and has a

circulation of almost half a million, being politically moderate in views.

The Sunday Telegraph was founded in 1961, is more right-wing and passes its

circulation is declining. (Newspapers in Britain. 20 January

http://eng.1september.ru/2002/08/1.htm)

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This web page is taken from the quality newspaper The Times online. It is the

newspaper’s first page in which we can see a part of the main titles discussed in the pages

that follow. The material provided for the readers both informs and entertains them. Its

main headings are business, money, sport, lifestyle, travel, driving, arts and

entertainments, each with its subtitles. Its topics sustain the type of paper it is. They are

concerned with Britain’s system of government, laws, army, money and jobs,

international news (here about the wife’s president, Michelle Obama, and the title article

is very attractive as it questions the readers if she could be “America’s Lady Diana”), etc.

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There are also articles for teenagers, but mainly concerned with them having a better life,

thus articles about universities and career opportunities are the most frequently published

ones. For the purpose of being on their taste and for that of trying to raise their interest,

newspapers can opt for a sort of “academic” slang: here “uni” instead of university.

Language is characterized by simple words that give a clear image of what is being

related, thus presenting clear ideas about it needs to be said. The headlines are not big and

do not contain colourful adjectives and expressions in order to attract people’s interest.

They summarize the content of the article. There are a few photos, not very big, so they

are not used to raise curiosity, but to give extra information on the article.

With this example and with a quote belonging to Cyril D Pereira I end up my

project about quality newspapers. “The 'quality' press will attract a disproportionately

high volume of display advertising for upmarket products because they offer a focused

reach of the top end of the socio-economic pyramid with minimum wastage. The

consumer power of his audience also enables quality newspapers to set relatively higher

rates for equivalent space, despite generally smaller circulations.”

(The Lifeblood of Newspapers, 20 January 2009,

http://dr.ntu.edu.sg/bitstream/10220/606/1/AMIC_87_OCTNOV_33.pdf)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Gombos, Leon, 2005, “Pregatirea profesionala a jurnalistului roman. Specializarea in presa sportive”, in Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai,Ephemerides, L, 1, pp 43-100;

The Role of Thematic Information in Advertising Headlines, (in colaborare cu Anisoara Pop) in Studia (Universitatis Babes-Bolyai), LII, 4, 2007, pp. 201-207

WEB PAGES:

Advertising: The Lifeblood of Newspapers, 20 January 2009, http://dr.ntu.edu.sg/bitstream/10220/606/1/AMIC 87 OCTNOV 33.pdf

Newspaper, 19 January 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper

Newspapers in the UK: An Introduction. 19 January 2009, http://www.mediauk.com/article/4

Popular and Quality Newspapers. 20 January 2009, http://ilias.vhs21.ac.at/2bw/englisch/Czabaun_Jutta/Media%20(newspapers).pdf)

Reflections on Content Quality in Newspapers, 16 January 2009, http://www.poynter.org/resources/63500/bogart.pdf

Social changes 1989-1996 and Newspaper Language, 20 January 2009, http://insoliso.hit.bg/KS.html The Language of Advertising in Newspapers. 20 January 2009, http://www.google.ro

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