Master's Degree Paper

7/30/2019 Master's Degree Paper

1/38

UNIVERSITATEA BABES-BOLYAI CLUJ-NAPOCA

MINISTERUL EDUCATIEI SI CERCETARII

DISCURSUL POLITIC IN PRESA SCRISA

LUCRARE DE DIZERATIE

THE POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE

NEWS

COORDONATOR STIINTIFIC:

Prof. Dr. Ecaterina Popa

ABSOLVENTA:

Kiss Kinga Iulia

-2006-

CONTENTS

1.Language of the news.............................................................................................3

1.1Language...............................................................................................................3

1


2/38

1.2Lexical structure....................................................................................................4

1.3Functions of the language.....................................................................................5

1.4Discourse and the reader.......................................................................................6

2.The Media industry.................................................................................................7

2.1Politics and the Mass Media in Britain..................................................................8

2.2Press.......................................................................................................................9

2.3 The British Press...................................................................................................10

2.4Running a newspaper............................................................................................10

2.5Planning a newspaper...........................................................................................11

2.6Layout and design.................................................................................................13

3. What is news? .......................................................................................................14

3.1News values..........................................................................................................15

3.2 The discourse of the news ....................................................................................16

3.3 The structure of the news.....................................................................................17

3.4Intro.....................................................................................................................19

3.5 Wh-s......................................................................................................................20

4. News agencies.......................................................................................................22

5. Essential features of the language of the news...................................................23

6. Oral models in the press.......................................................................................266.1Modality...............................................................................................................27

6.2Interpersonal elements: acts of speech................................................................28

7.Discrimination in discourse: gender and power...................................................29

8. Journalism in the market place...........................................................................30

8.1A free press..........................................................................................................31

8.2 Objectivity and comment.....................................................................................31

8.3 Agenda-setting....................................................................................................32

8.4 English.................................................................................................................33

9. Analysis of political news ....................................................................................34

1. LANGUAGE OF THE NEWS

1.1 LANGUAGE

In Saussurean linguistics, language is an autonomous abstract system, self-

contained, self-regulating and quite arbitrary in its genesis and its relations with the non-

linguistic world. Language as a code has a cognitive role because it provides an

2


3/38


4/38

The value or sense of a word is given by its place within a system of related

terms. Sense relations within systems explain how it is that the vocabulary of a

language is a structured system rather than just the arbitrary list that the dictionary

makes it seem to be. These relations provide the structure of the "map". (Fowler 1991:

82) A map is a symbolic representation of a territory. Vocabulary can be regarded as a

representation of the world for a culture; the world as perceived according to the

ideological needs of a culture. Like the map it works first by segmentation: by

partitioning the material continuum of nature and the undifferentiated flux of thought

into slices. It is an elementary task for the critical analyst to note, in the discourse he is

studying, just what terms habitually occur, what segments of the society's world enjoy

constant discursive attention. Clusters of related terms are found to mark out distinct

kinds of preoccupation and topic.

e.g. Radioactivity: danger level, tests, thyroid glands, limit, radiation, contamination.

The lexical register is the scientific one associated with the fields of nuclear

physics and pathology. Some of the words have a highly specific technical application in

their field. It is presumably part of our communicative or discursive competence to

recognize these registers, and to be aware that they mark off socially and ideologically

distinct areas of experience: they have a categorizing function. Categorization by

lexical structure is recognized by Halliday when, diagramming the elements ofideational structure, he speaks of "taxonomic organization of vocabulary". (Fowler

1991: 84) Vocabulary both sorts out experience in general terms, both makes detailed

distinctions between classes of concept. This type of structural opposition can be seen,

where vocabulary dichotomizes political organizations into two groups.

We will see that categorization by vocabulary is an integral part of the

reproduction of ideology in the newspaper.

1.3 FUNCTIONS OF THE LANGUAGE

Halliday proposes that all language performs simultaneously three functions,

which he calls "ideational", "interpersonal", and "textual". (Fowler 1991: 69)

Firstly, language serves for the expression of content: it has a

'representational', or 'ideational' function thus the writer embodies in language his

experience of the external world; but this includes his experience of the internal world of

his own consciousness.

Secondly, language serves what we may call an ' interpersonal function'. The

4


5/38

writer is using language as the means of his own intrusion into the writing act: the

expression of his comments, his attitudes and also the relationship that he sets up

between himself and his reader- in particular, the communication role that he adopts, of

informing, questioning, persuading.

Thirdly, the 'textual' function is in turn instrumental to these two and is

concerned with the creation of text. Through this function, language makes links with

itself and with the situation, and discourse becomes possible.

R. Fowler considers that these functions are sets of social options, not areas of

privileged personal choice.

Conventional linguistics would regard a language as consisting of a set of

"varieties" (Fowler 1991: 59) of three different sorts: a set of registers, a set of dialects

and a set of modes (printed or spoken).

Texts are actually often heterogeneous, and they also contain either segments that

are either ambiguous or neutral as to variety. The author prefers saying not that a text is

in a certain mode but that modes and registers and dialects are "in" (Fowler 1991: 60)

texts.

The text is co-produced by writer and reader, negotiating the nature and

significance of a piece of language on the basis of their more or less shared knowledge

of the world, society and language itself.

1.4 DISCOURSE AND THE READER

The writer is constituted by the discourse. Discourse is socially and

institutionally originating ideology, encoded in language.

Readers-sponges or passive vessels, absorbing an ideology which the source of

the text imposed on them or being a reader is an active, creative practice?

The schema is a fundamental concept in contemporary cognitive psychology. A

schema is a chunk of unconscious knowledge, shared within a group of people and

drawn upon in the process of making sense of the world. Schemata are of major

importance in memory and in perception, being projected upon the impressions of sense

it makes experience coherent, meaningful. Stereotypes are schemata and so are models

of discourse. Other types of schemata include frames, scripts and prototypes, different

kinds of structurings of knowledge which appear to be used in the shaping of discourse

5


6/38

into coherent texts.

The newspaper and its readers share a common "discursive competence"

(Fowler 1991: 44) they know the permissible statements, permissions and prohibitions.

Readers may not possess the writing crafts of the professional journalist, but in a sense

they feel the significance of the various journalistic codes already, through living within

the society and through habitual exposure to the discourse.

What we actually perceive when we read a paper are stylistic diversity, vitality,

individuality. These qualities or effects are the fruits of the brilliant technical skills which

many journalists possess. Newspapers have to be lively because they offer themselves

as a brand of entertainment, and because they must disguise the fact that they are actually

a form of institutional discourse. The personal voice is a necessary but accepted

illusion.

The basic task for the writer is to word institutional statements in a style

appropriate to interpersonal communication. The task is not only stylistic, but also

ideological: institutional concepts have to be translated into personal thoughts . The

process can be seen in terms of the narrowing of a gap between bureaucratic and

personal discourse. The gap once narrowed, a discursive norm is achieved for the whole,

a sense of "neutral" (Fowler 1991: 47) language. The fundamental in narrowing the

discursive gap is the promotion of oral models within the printed newspaper text, givingan illusion of conversation.

Each paper has developed a regular and characteristic mode of address. Popular

tabloid newspapers such as The Daily Star, The Mirror and The Sun have already

developed a language of their own. The best way to determine the style of a newspaper

is to think about the reader. What do they do, how do they speak, what are their

interests? Papers do try to be consistent in their style so they do not alienate readers.

The language employed will thus be the newspaper's own version of the

language of the public to whom it is principally addressed: its version of the rhetoric,

imagery and underlying common stock of knowledge which it assumes its audience

shares and which thus forms the basis of the reciprocity of producer/reader.

Establishing a style is fundamental to the building of an assumption of

consensus. Consensus assumes that, for a given grouping of people, interets of the

whole population are undivided, held in common and a whole population subscribe to a

certain set of beliefs.

Any aspect of linguistic structure can carry ideological significance but certain

areas of language are particularly implicated in coding social values. The role of linguistic

6


7/38

structure in the construction of ideas in the Press, confers language the status not of a

neutral, but a "highly constructive mediator" (Fowler 1991: 1).

2. The media industry

The mass media are products in two senses. They are like other products in

that they are the result of an industrial process. All require the division of labour, a

complex social organization, and heavy investment in highly technological capital. And

second, we, as consumers, are able to choose only between those products that are

available in the market-place. As in other markets the consumer of mass media products

has very little control over their nature. One central feature of the mass media is that

they are designed to allow a "one-way flow of information" (Barrat 1986:15). A small

group of media professionals transmit messages to a much larger audience which has

very little opportunity to reply. Writers such as Mcluhan take an optimistic view of the

media, which he sees as possessing the power to reunite mankind in a new electronic

community: "the global village" (Barrat 1986: 15). Another key feature of the mass

media is theirspeed. They are capable of transmitting the same message simultaneously

to a large audience.

2.1 Politics And The Mass Media In Britain

"politics creates and conditions all aspects of our lives and it is at the core of

the development of problems in society and the collective modes of their resolution"

(Negrine 1989: vi).

Politics and political discourse infuse all aspects of our lives and the mass

media play a key role in this process of political communication. Within mass mediaattention is mainly focused on those aspects which are overtly political -either in content

or in their implications.

Empirical research has long confirmed that for most people the media are the

major sources of influence about world events and about political affairs. This broad

approach to the political significance of the mass media is reflected in many

contemporary writings. The media provide "the informational building blocks to

structure views of the world...from which may stem a range of acts." (Negrine 1989: 3)

A press report will consist of a selection of information and that particular selection will

7


8/38

inevitably inform as well as contribute towards specific attitudes. However, the mass

media select which events to cover and they take decisions about how those events will

be presented thus their explanation of those events will consist of their explanations and

interpretations.

The selecting of information is subject to a clear pattern; a pattern which

indicates a hierarchy of seemingly important events and individuals. Thus, the news

values direct out thinking to specific areas, contributing to our mental maps of the world.

Media presentation has now become such a critical feature of the process of

negotiations and public image-making that those who do not give it its due credit are

likely to find their credibility in question. Political actors, aided and abetted by the media,

help construct images of reality. Their visibility, achieved on account of the mass media,

forces them into the public and political domain. Powerful images become coins of

exchange ;they populate our consciousness and can be recalled intact by the sheer

mention of a single word or by a brief news clip from the past. But, importantly, they

cannot be ignored nor can they be dismissed easily as irrational fabrications.

2.2 THE PRESS

The Press has become an integral part of a complex network of institutions

and it contributes to the relationships between institutions and groups in the political

system. No one can deny that mass media are "so deeply embedded in the [political]

system" (Negrine 1989:6) that they could hardly survive at all. Political activity is a by-

product of the existence of the media thus contours of the political system are, to an

extent, derived from the work of mass media.

One can observe that political activity in its contemporary form owes a great deal

to the existence and practices of the mass media. Press activity shapes the politicalsystem, it brings new players and issues into the political arena and rearranges positions

and placings.

However, mass media do not single-handedly give shape to the map of political

system. Much recent research has focused on the degrees of co-operation and collusion

between the mass media and those with the power to impress their own definitions of

the world onto the practices of news organizations.

We must take account of the relationships between the media and those in

positions of power; we must focus on specific and recognizable instances of 'impact'and

8


9/38

'effect' as well as the deeper level of perceptions of politics and of its system.

Media presentation has now become such a critical feature of the process of

negotiations and public image-making that those who do not give it its due credit are

likely to find their credibility in question. Political actors, aided and abetted by the media,

help construct images of reality. Their visibility, achieved on account of the mass media,

forces them into the public and political domain. Powerful images become coins of

exchange ;they populate our consciousness and can be recalled intact by the sheer

mention of a single word or by a brief news clip from the past. But, importantly, they

cannot be ignored nor can they be dismissed easily as irrational fabrications.

One cannot help noticing the decline in press political influence with the growth

in the importance of television and local radio at election times. Non-media based

opinion polls, have become an important element in people's voting intentions. Different

surveys led to these two conclusions: newspapers, in Britain at least, do not appear to

influence voting intentions or to reflect them to any degree; people on the whole do

not seem to buy newspapers for politcal reasons.

2.3 The British Press

The commercialism of the press, the effect of advertising, the trend to

sensationalism, concentration on ownership, and the reduction of political

coverage reshaped the British Press. Newspapers and political parties have an

"affinity" (Negrine 1989:46) Newspapers are the media through which political parties

establish themselves in the minds of the public. The newspaper is the channel through

which a political party can transmit its ideology and advertise its programme.

There is a connection not only between individual papers and parties but also a

correspondence, or parallelism, between the range of papers and the range of parties. It

is with this ideal of parallelism in mind that one embarks on an analysis of the biased

nature of the British Press. By 1970, the media sociologist Colin Seymour-Ure was

saying that the media had detached itself as never before from the party system and might

take an anti-Government stance regardless of party.

Over the last two centuries, the relationship between the press and the political

parties has gone through many changes. The contemporary phase emphasizes the

dominance of the market place and the lessening importance of politics for much of the

national daily press.

Newspapers do usually align themselves with certain political parties and do

show their support for political party programmes and policies in a variety of ways.

9


10/38

Newspapers have traditionally wished to play a part in the political system and have

never been reluctant to express a view. ('The Sun says')

In a few cases, the continued support for a political party can be explained by

reference to an historical connection. The Mail, The Express, and The Times have

always preferred conservative parties.

2.4 Running a newspaper

"... financial strength and commercial stability are the best guarantees of a

free press..." (Hodgson 1996: 141)

Newspapers in Britain are owned by a great variety of companies from small

family firms to big industrial conglomerates which control some of the national daily and

Sunday papaers.

Newspapers are traditionally a high cost industry. Newspaper revenue comes

from two main sources: the cover charge of the newspaper and from advertising.

Other income can arise from commercial printing, promotions, special offers and readers'

services. On the whole, advertising is the main source, though varying in percentage

from paper to paper.

A popular national daily or Sunday paper is faced with a high newsprint bill for its

millions of copies, plus high distribution costs, but this is offset by the fact that its

circulation brings in a good cover charge income. In the populars a target advertising

content to ensure reasonable profit is between 35 and 45 per cent. The cover charge is

kept as low as possible and a balance is achieved between circulation and advertising

income ( with advertising bringing in about a third of the total revenue).

Quality national dailies and Sundays find that despite a substantially higher cover

charge their smaller circulations and high newsprint bills for thicker papers make it

necessary to carry between 50 and 70% advertising to produce a profit. Advertising

accounts for about 60% of the revenue.

With a greater area of type through having more pages and less space given to

display, quality papers have made greater economies of scale by the adoption of

computer-setting through direct input, especially for classified advertising, on which they

depend more than do the populars. With the popular tabloids, where the actual amount

of keyboarding is less, display more complex and the income from circulation more

important, the changeover has been less spectacular in cost-saving.

10


11/38

2.5 Planning a newspaper

There is a method in the way newspapers are put together. Stories and features

are not just dropped into the pages as they are written, starting with page one and

finishing up with the back page. There is an overall plan or model in the editor's mind

of the sort of contents the paper must have. Newspapers, in fact, usually stick to a

basic contents format that suits them; thus there is a balance of the editorial contents (a

balance between the editorial content and the advertising, which occupies a percentage

of the space on each page).

There is also an order in the placing of the ingredients. The reader knows where

to look for things. He or she knows that the leading news story of the day, or week, will

occupy the biggest space on page one, where to find the sports pages, or the editorial

opinion, where the business section is placed, and where the showbiz gossip is.

In the quality nationals, the reader even knows where to look for the foreign and

political news. The aim is to help the reader. Familiarity is an important principle in

newspaper layout and design. It not only concerns where things are located but the

form in which they appear. Thus a fixed typographical format will be given to television

programmes and the racing cards to make checking easy. The business news, the regular

columnists and even the horoscopes will be marked out by a distinctive heading or label

by which they can be recognized.

Under the influence of competitive selling, most of Britain's national papers,

popular and quality, have created a separate design department, or art desk where the

pages are drawn in detail, the types chosen and the pictures edited by newspaper artists

or journalists trained in layout and typography.

The page design, or 'scheme', is achieved by placing the elements in relation to

each so that the eye is persuaded to move round the page to inspect the various items.

The balance of colour, boldness, pictures, headlines must afford the reader what

newspaper designer Alan Hutt calls "eye comfort" (Hodgson 1996: 85).

A newspaper page is divided into a fixed number of columns-usually 8 or 9 in a

broadsheet, seven in a tabloid. These columns establish the standard typesetting width to

be used in each paper for headlines and text. Headlines, and occasionally text, can also

appear across multiples of a column; in the case of important headlines.

It is also possible, for display purposes, for headlines and text to be at an arbitrary

width, thus breaking the general rule.. This is called bastard setting. A page consists of

four elements: text, headlines, pictures and advertisements.

11


12/38

Headlines-Newspapers pages have headlines of different sizes and widths, most

of them in a matching type. The biggest headline on a page is usually at the top of the

page and mostly on the longest story. If it crosses the top of the page it is called a

banner headline, orstreamer, and its size and prominence indicate that this is the most

important story.

We call this the lead story. The streamer might have above it a smaller line of

heading containing a separate statement. This is called a strap-line, a subsidiary or

introductory headline which comes first and qualifies the main headline. The second

biggest, or second most prominent healine indicates the second most important story.

We call this the half lead. The remaining stories with headlines at the top at the half of

the page are called tops.

2.6 Layout and design

Newspapers are published in two main sizes: broadsheet or text-size as, for

instance, the Daily Telegraph and Financial Times, and tabloid or half-size like The Sun

and the Daily Mirror.

The tabloid page area is approximately half that of broadsheet. Generally, all

papers are of these two sorts, whether national or provincial, popular or quality. There is

no historical significance in the sizes. Most early newspapers were half size; later

broadsheet became popular. In recent decades the tabloid size has come to be associated

with the popular national papers, perhaps because it is easier to hold for people hurrying

to work using public transport or with little reading time. The tabloid size lends itself to

the sort, of bold poster-style layout pioneered by the Daily Mirror, which has strongly

influenced the layout of other tabloids.

Conversely, quality papers in Britain, The Times, the Financial Times, The

Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the quality Sunday papers

have retained the traditional broadsheet format, although there is no evidence that a

change to tabloid shape would have necessarily injured their character.

Why reading/preferring nespapers? A newspaper' s personality would appear

to be the vital factor in choice by readers. This personality is the product of a unique, if

fragile partnership between editor and reader. If the partnership breaks down, then the

paper fails. Loyalty might count for a while but it is not sufficient on its own.

We must consider the threat of rival communications media. By 1977, the

electronic news sheet had begun to reach the home via television under the names of

12


13/38

Prestel, Ceefax and Oracle. Though it was at first expensive its future provoked new

messages of doom on Fleet Street. Yet, six years later, in 1983, when the new method

had grown much cheaper the ABC half-yearly circulation returns showed that total daily

sales of the national dailies had actually risen in the period. By 1992, despite teletext, tv,

video and computer games the total daily sales of the nationals were still running at

14,113,000 in a period of deepest recession.

The conclusion one is forced to draw is that one medium feeds on another,

that a newspaper's story sends people to television news or radio, or teletext to see the

latest developments and that a Ceefax or radio newsflash sends people to newspapers to

get the details. That the expansion of the media, especially television, and perhaps of

travel, is augmenting people's insatiable curiosity about the world and its

happenings.

Another survey reported that "regular watching of television news is more

common among regular newspaper readers than among others" (Hodgson 1996: 174).

There is, in fact, no statistical evidence to suggest that newspapers face any

intrinsic danger from rival news media. Any danger to newspaper buying was always

more likely to come from within. Heavy production or newsprint costs could force up

the cover charge of newspapers so that people might find them too expensive to buy. It

is here that computerized technology has served the press well by helping to bring abouteconomies.

Readership profiles

The National Readership Survey profiles make interesting reading for editiors as

well as for advertising men. In addition to the social grades, the readership of the

national and principal provincial papers is listed in percentage age groups: 15-24, 25-34,

35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and over 65. "The National Readership Survey is thus the bible of

the media space sales person." (Hodgson 1996: 151)

3. What is news?

We must question and define what we mean by news, the commodity from which

the newspaper derives its name. Norwegian sociologists Galtung and Ruge have made a

much quoted definition which sees news as a crisis of variable intensity which is assessed

by factors of "personalisation" or "cultural proximity"(Hodgson 1996: 9).

Stuart Mill believes that news "is the end-product of a complex process"

(Fowler 1991: 12), systematic sorting, selecting of events, topics while Greg Philo says

13


14/38

that news i s a "creation of a journalistic process, an artifact, a commodity

even."(Fowler 1991: 13) Researches on the question of impartiality has revealed that

"news is socially constructed" (Fowler 1991: 2) The reported events reveal the

operation of a complex and artificial set of criteria for selection. Then, the selected news

is subject to processes of transformation as it is encoded for publication; the technical

properties of the medium are strongly effective in this transformation. Analysis of output

can reveal abstract propositions which are not necessarily stated, and are usually

unquestioned, and which dominate the structure of presentation. "News is an industry

with its own commercial self-interest" (Fowler 1991: 2). News is a 'practice'2: a

discourse which, far from neutrally reflecting social reality and empirical facts,

intervenes in "the social construction of reality" (Fowler 1991: 2).

'News' and 'truth' are not the same. The "function of news is to signalize an event,

the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts...and make a picture of reality..."

(Negrine1989: 140)

3.1 News values

We find Stuart Hall describing news values as "based on inferred knowledge

about the audience, inferred assumptions about society and a professional code or

ideology" (Negrine 1989: 139)

Johann Galtung and Mary Ruge try to identify those factors which assure the

inclusion of a news item in the newspaper. According to their research these are:

-frequency

-amplitude

-meaningful

-consonance-the more expected the event, the more likely that it will become news

-unexpectedness

In addition to these factors, there are four culturally relevant ones. The more an

event concerns (1) elite nations and (2) elite people the more likely to become news.

Similarly, the more (3) personalized and the more (40 negative the event, the greater

its potential to become news.

Considerations of the newsworthiness prioritize events and they describe,

establish and reinforce images and relationships of order and power in our society. This

key category of newsworthiness leads to "the routine knowledge of social structures"

(Negrine 1989: 5) inscribed within it. The media do not simply report the world for us in

14


15/38

any 'neutral' or 'objective' sense , they interpret the world for us.

Specific cultural contexts assures press the usage of existing cultural referants

because, like coins of exchange , they are comprehended by all. This allows for cultural

continuity as well as for cultural change. The media also perceives some institutions

more important and hence more news worthy than others and they perpetuate that

perception by locating themselves within or near those institutions. Consequently there is

a "bias towards authority" (Negrine 1989: 6) ever present in medial work. The more

newsworthiness criteria an event satisfies, the more likely is to be reported.

3.2 THE DISCOURSE OF THE NEWS

The language of news today is the product of centuries of linguistic evolution. It

is not a "natural" form of writing. (Keeble 1994: 86) It is a particular discourse with its

own rhytms, tones, words and phrases. Every word counts. The sense of news values has

to be sharp and that only comes with practice. "Kiss (Keep it short and simple) and tell"

Keeble 1994: 86) could be the journalist's motto. Short, precise sentences are the best.

There are questions that a scrupulous writer must ask, according to G. Orwell: "What

am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it

clearer?...Could I put it more simply?...". (Keeble 1994: 86)

Just as the culture is brutalized, so is the language of the news . The media

are driven to extremes to capture attention, constantly "bombarding" (Keeble 1994: 91)

readers with sensationalised trivia, so the language of violence is used to carry out this

'bombardment'.

The British linguist M.A.K. Halliday emphasizes the correlation between

linguistic form and social setting. He draws attention to the tremendous range of

sociolinguistic variety to be found within a single whole language such as English. He

enquires into the functions of this variety both in delimiting social groups and also in

encoding the different ideologies of those groups. News is a representation of the

world in language ; language imposes a structure of values, social and economic in

origin and so inevitably news constructively patterns that of which it speaks. News is a

representation in this sense of construction; it is not a value-free reflection of facts.

Another theoretical point is that each particular form of linguistic expression in a text has

its reason. Difference in expression carry ideological distinctions.

Critical linguistics enquiry into the relations between signs, meanings and the

social and historical conditions which govern the semiotic structure of the discourse. In

15


16/38

fact the standard media analysis aims to be descriptive, not destructive. All news is

always reported from particular angle. "Language is not a clear window but a

refracting, structuring medium". (Fowler 1991: 10) Real events are subject to

conventional processes of selection.

The media do not reproduce reality in a pure form; their use of language and

images as well as the working practices of journalists inevitably refract reality, so

distorting it. "Media reality" (Negrine 1989: 10) , according to Gladys Lang constitutes

"a symbolic environment... super imposed on the natural environment". (Negrine 1989:

10)

The veracity of the media account may be questioned but few doubt that the

events reported took place in some way. Media reality is political reality. The process

of news-making involves a degree of interaction or strategic bargaining , as between the

sources of news and the news media. Each informs the other and the subsequent

reactions are reciprocal and continuous rather than unilinear and in one direction. The

product of this interaction or bargaining is the media content to which the public at large

attend. The public plays no part in this social construction, it can do little more than

accept or ignore what is transmitted. In recent years, there have been several examples of

governments excluding or controlling the media in order to direct the flow of information

and so minimize the political impact of the medium.

3.3 THE STRUCTURE OF THE NEWS

"The inverted pyramids" concept (Keeble 1994: 129)

There are plenty of books offering tips for how to create the perfect article. The

production of news takes place with the interest of the audience uppermost in the mind

of the journalist. The cellular unit of any piece of writing is the paragraph and

Fowler's words of warning must be our guiding line: "The paragraph is essentially a

unit of thought, not of length; it must be homogeneous in subject matter and

sequential in treatment". (Hodgson 1996: 8)

Most experienced journalists find writing an automatic, instinctive process and do

not dwell on ideas such as the pyramid. One must get through this process automatically,

deciding first on an angle, then an intro., before writing the remainder of the story news.

Traditional analysis of news stories stresses the notion of the inverted pyramid with the

most important elements at the top and the least important (defined as background)

briefly at the bottom.

16


17/38

This notion is useful for stories based in the main on one source. For the vast

majority it oversimplifies the writing process. News values operate throughout the

individual sections while background can occur anywhere in a news story.

So why use a pyramid? Unlike other forms of writing, news stories tend to

begin with the result of the event rather than what may have happened first. With a news

story one's climax comes at the top of the copy, or the top of the pyramid.

News stories are usually made up from a mix of quotes, factual detail,

background information and occasionally brief analysis, comment, description. Each of

these elements usually comprises separate thematic sections. Within each section news

values apply: the most important comes first, the least important last.

Instead of a single inverted pyramid it is more useful to think of a series of

inverted pyramids within an overall inverted pyramid.

Summary of story

Lead: expansion of intro.

Second section: new source

Third section: background

Fourth section: return to source from intro.

Section structure Each section will tend to begin with its main subject and most newsy

elements associated with it. This could be the most important quote or detail.Concerning grammar issues, past tense or past continuous are the dominant

styles for news stories in most newspapers. When we come to look at features, there is

greater scope for different writing styles. This is not to say that all new stories must be

written in the past tense. If one previews an event that is due to happen the following day

or month, the present tense would be better. There are no fixed stylistic rules, rules will

generally be dictated by the publication concerned.

Choosing an angle

Given the ever present deadlines, it is critical for the journalist to think of a

possible angle. The angle of a story is the approach the journalist takes to the story.

In determining the significance of events, the papers and their readers make

reference to what are variously called in cognitive psychology and in semantics ' frames',

'paradigms', 'stereotypes' , 'schemata'. People work with tacit mental categories for

the sorting of experience. A stereotype is a socially-constructed mental pigeon-hole

onto which events and individuals can be sorted. Stereotypes are creative: they are

categories which we project on to the world in order to make sense of it. The occurence

of a striking event will reinforce a stereotype, and reciprocally, the firmer the stereotype,

17


18/38

the more likely are relevant events to become news. An item can only be selected if it can

be seen in a certain light of representation, and so selection involves ideological act of

interpretation.

When a reader surveys a newspaper page there are a few major foci for attention:

pictures, headlines, intros and picture captions. Their grammatical style and content set

the tone and character of the whole paper.

3.4 INTRO.

Intro (known in America as the 'lead' or 'nose') is the most important

paragraph since it has to draw the reader into the story by creating a sense of urgency

and exciting their interest. It should highlight the main theme or angle of the story

and set the tone.

Writing an into.

Why is the intro., sometimes called the lead, so important? One of the joys of

getting

your news from a newspaper is that one can read it, if it has enough time, at a leisurely

space. In most instances the reader first digest the opening sentence of the story -the

introduction. By writing a good intro., one not only absorbs the reader, encouraging him

to read further, but also clarifies the essence of the story in their mind.

What information should be included in the introduction? There are five facts that

must, in whole or part, be included in the lead. This is perhaps the most important rule to

learn in writing news stories because it helps the reader digest immediately the most

pertinent facts.

In general terms, the length of an intro. should be no more than 40 words. It

should be up to three sentences long and normally take up one paragraph. These are not

hard and fast rules but guidelines. Many tabloid feature intros are just a single sentence,

whereas broadsheet leads are much longer.

3.5 The famous five Wh-s

'Who', 'What', 'Where', 'When', 'Why' are the famous five intro . Ws. In

addition, some stories have a 'How' element. But the intro should not seek to answer all

18


19/38

these questions: it would be overloaded with words. Most news stories begin with the

main clause because they answer the 'who' and 'what', which tend to be the most

important pieces of information. Readers do not want to wade through dull details,

background or comment before arriving at the main point.

The 'Who' fact is self-evident, dealing with the identity of the subject of the

story. The 'who' fact can also be an organization or even an animal.

The 'What' fact is a little more difficult to grasp. The best way to think about is

to ask ourselves: what happened. In general terms, it is often the result of the story that

becomes the what fact.

The 'Who' and 'What' facts are the two most important facets of the intro.

The other four may be left until the second paragraph, but these two aspects will

immediately involve the reader. Often the best intros are those written for news briefs

when journalists are faced with coming up with only a few words to tell an entire story.

The 'When' fact should be obvious. Literally it is when did the event happened?

It is common practice for this fact to appear in the first paragraph. It informs the reader

that the journalist is up to date with the story and he is following developments. One may

sometimes notice that the when fact is absent. Newspapers, while losing the battle of

immediacy to radio and television, are still in the business of providing the latest angles

and this is worth emphasizing in one's story.News is rooted in time, the more up to date the better. Thus the 'when' element

is crucial in many hard news intros. Morning newspapers, through their various editions,

mostly focus on the events of the previous day and plans/forecasts future events.

Weeklies mix a review of the previous week's events with up to date news and pointers

to the future. Dailies tend to focus on the latest 'hot' news and can change stories

through editions as the day progresses. 'Stop press' column gives the news just before

the paper is printed. This emphasis on 'newness' is commercially driven. The hotter the

news the more sellable it is. As the new technology of satellites and video cameras brings

"as-it-happens" (Keeble 1994: 112) news to the television screens, expectations for

'newness' of the media-consuming public increase. Intro hardly ever begin with the basic

'when' words such as: last night, yesterday.

The 'Where' fact is again quite obvious. Where did the story happen? That is,

what is the location? The reason is that the where fact is not crucially important to our

understanding of the story. Every story, is different and thus the formula for writing it

will differ in each case. Local papers will often include the 'where' element prominently in

the intro. since it stresses the local angle. The 'where' fact is very important as readers

19


20/38

will be very concerned about what is happening on their doorstep. National papers may

sometimes delay mention of the 'where' to add an element of vagueness and encourage

everyone from all over the country to read on. Most foreign stories carry the 'where'.

When the 'where' element is particularly significant it is worth starting the story with it.

The 'Why' fact is optional in many stories. The why fact is avoided if one

believes it is self-evident to the reader.

The 'How' fact, often very similar to the why fact, is the most mysterious element

in the intro. Essentially, it only applies to certain stories where we are interested in a

particular process. One must think of a certain priority which must be given to the raw

data by a process of selection.

Types of intro.

- "Clothesline" (Keeble 1994: 121) intro contains all the five 'Ws'.

-'Summary' intro. This is used when the reporter, faced with a number of competing

angles none of which stands out, settles for generalised angle.

-'Single element' intro. This contrasts with the 'summary' intro and is used when one

angle is particularly strong and needs highlighting.

-'Bullet'or 'staccato'intro. This is used when the main point can be covered very briefly.

-'Personalized' intro. Generally news excludes the 'I' of the journalist. It suggests too

much subjectivity. The personalized intro. subverts that convention and places the 'I' at

the centre of the action. The journalist witnessing the event carries its own

newsworthiness.

-'Comment' intro. News often has the appearance of objectivity when, in fact, it is the

journalist commenting.

-'Punning' intro. This is found particularly in the 'pops' or some local newspapers. It

provides brightness to the copy. Names of television programmes, stars, or films and

well-known vernacular phrases are often used.

-'Narrative'intro. This is used when the unusual aspect can be best conveyed through a

brief chronology of events. Delaying the main angle is difficult to achieve, and needs to

be handled with caution. It works by arousing the reader's sense of curiosity.It is best

used when something unusual has happened and the reader is kept in suspense before

being let into the secret.

There are several different types of feature intros. The "news peg" (Stephenson

1998: 76) intro., is one of the more popular styles. Simply put, it takes a news story as

its peg and writes the intro around it.

20


21/38

The 'quote intro.', which self-evidently starts the story with a quote. It is worth

remembering that "breakout quotes" (Stephenson 1998: 78) are sometimes used on the

page itself to highlight a particularly good piece of the interview ( or as a typographical

device to break up slabs of text)

The 'question intro'., which seeks to raise the central issue of the feature with a

query. It is a good way to start a politics feature in which the writer is putting forward

some argument as a point of debate.

All newspapers have a view about good journalistic style. This is outlined in a

document called the 'style book'. It will tend to focus on such elements as spellings,

punctuation, abbreviations, the use of capitals, titles, Americanisms to avoid, the

handling of quotations. The Times has gone so far as to publish its own style book ( The

Times English Style and Usage Guide).

4. News agencies

News agencies perform a useful service collecting and syndicating news and

pictures to subscribing newspapers on an annual contract basis. Most countries

nowadays have their own national news agency, some jointly owned by tha various

newspaper companies, others subsidized by the State. in Britain the principal national

agency, the Press Asssociation (PA), is cooperatively owned by the main provincial

newspaper companies.

News is gathered through correspondents around the country and is edited and

transmitted to newspapers from PA' s London headquarters on four services: news,

financial news, sport, and pictures and graphics, plus a world news service of items

concerning Britain and Ireland edited from Reuters and Associated Press.

The big four international agencies used in Britain are: Reuters, United Press

International and Associated Press from America and Agence France Presse. These

agencies provide for a world daily newspaper circulation of more than 450 million and a

world broadcast audience, in excess of 1,500 million. Reuters and UPI are the world's

leading suppliers of newsfilm for television. They also sell directly to data banks and

private subscribers, and their computerized financial services bring in important revenue.

In Britain, most of the bigger newspapers take Reuters as well as the national

agency, Press Association, and some perhaps one foreign agency.

The international agencies are useful as initial spot news tipsters, which helps

papers which are interested but who do not have a man on the spot. The reduction in

21


22/38

recent years in the numbers of foreign correspondents has increased dependence of

newspapers of all types on news agencies for news from abroad and the role of news

agencies generally is expanding.

The remaining input of news stories comes mainly from freelance contributors,

foreign correspondents, material based on press hand-outs and official reports, and from

pooled services within newspaper groups, to which reporters on each paper contribute.

5. Essential features of the language of the news:

Speed is the essence of newspapers.Speed is the essence of news reading just as

it is of news gathering. Information should flow logically and easily through copy, the

structure being so refined it is invisible to the reader. Sentence structure and page design

are influenced by the need to help readers move through the newspaper quickly. As the

speed of everyday life increases the average concentration span narrows. Sentences

become shorter; headlines end up just a few "punchy" words, (Keeble 1994: 88)

acronyms proliferate. Words made from acronyms become standard (yuppie, yummie,

AIDS). Phrases that compress complex meaning into a few words are everywhere.

Newspaper design also influences language and sentence length.

Many factors lie behind the creation of this concise news language. With the

competition today between advertisers and editorial for space in newspapers, every

reported word involves a cost. Economic language helps provide economies in

production.

Brevity. Short words are preferred to long ones, meaningless modifiers are avoided,

language is used precisely, unnecessary prepositions are cut.

Puns. Reflect multifaceted-meanings, the witticism of language, the playfulness with

language.

Precise language and structure

Brightness rendered by active verbs and strong nouns

Absence of overt comment

No overt comment is inserted into the article; there is no conversational element to the

article; the language of the hard news is impersonal because it is essentially an

institutional, bureaucratic voice.

Magnitude. Wherever possible it is stressed the magnitude of the event. The number s

of people, objects, buildings, or amount of money involved will often be highlighted in

intros.

22


23/38

TRANSITIVITY. It is an essential tool in the analysis of representation. The meaning of

Halliday's "transitivity" (Fowler 1991: 70) differs from the sense of the term in traditional

grammar. But this syntactic distinction oversimplifies or neglects some important

differences of meaning between various types of verb, and therefore, various type of

clause.

A central insight of Halliday's, made very explicit that transitivity is the

foundation of representation: it is the way the clause is used to analyse events and

situations as being of certain types. And transitivity has the facility to analyse the same

event in different ways, a facility which is of course of great interest in newspaper

analysis. When we talk of something, Halliday says we must "analyse it as a semantic

configuration" (Fowler 1991: 71) we must represent it as one particular structure of

meaning. Since transitivity makes options available, so the choice we make indicates our

point of view is ideologically significant. Newspapers provide abundant examples of the

ideological significance of transitivity.

It is usually claimed, that actives and passives share the same propositional

meaning, differing only in syntactic ordering. But even if we assume equivalence in

transitivity and in propositional content, nevertheless, in a functional approach, there

have to be reasons why the structures differ.

The passive parts of the clause are deleted. Passive is a common structure inheadlines. It saves space, as well as immediately establishing the topic.

NOMINALIZATION. It has often been observed that English is a "nominalizing"

(Fowler 1991: 79) language. By this is meant that it is structurally possible, and actually

common, for predicates to be realized syntactically as nouns (derived nominals). There

are also in the basic vocabulary of English very many nouns which strictly speaking

designate actions and processes, not objects.

Nominalization and the use of nouns for actions are in fact endemic, especially in

official, bureaucratic and formal modes of discourse. Here are some nominals derived

from predicates: call, inquiry, completion of investigation, campaign, liberation

movement, interviews, tightening of sanctions, concessions.

Nominalization is a radical syntactic transformation of a clause, which has

extensive structural consequences and offers substantial ideological opportunities. How

much information goes unexpressed in a derived nominal, compared with a full

clause? Deleted in the nominal form are the participants/who did what to whom?), any

indication of time, and any indication of modality. The author claims that nominalization

was inherently, potentially mystificatory; that it permitted habits of concealment,

23


24/38

particularly in the areas of power-relations and writer's attitudes.

Transitional words and phrases

To help the flow between sections, transitional words and phrases can be used.

Transitional words and phrases fall into a number of categories.

-contrasts: 'but', 'however', 'nevertheless'

-comparisons: 'similarly', 'likewise'

-chronology: 'meanwhile', 'earlier', 'later'

-geographical situation: 'in Nottingham Council House'

-thematic development: 'on the global environment crisis'

Sentences rarely serve as useful links between thematic sections. Questions

similarly serve to delay the flow of hard news stories and should be avoided as

transitional device.

6. ORAL MODELS IN THE PRESS

A newspaper is an institution, printing connotes formality and authority while

speech and conversation connotes informality which assures solidarity.The text is co-

produced by writer and reader, negotiating the the nature and significance of a piece of

language on the basis of their more or less shared knowledge of the world, society and

language itself.

The reasons for adopting a conversational style have partly to do with with the

construction of an illusion of informality, familiarity, friendliness. The ideological

function of conversation is to naturalize the terms in which reality is represented , and the

categories those terms represent. Conversation implies co-operation, agreement,

symmetry of power and knowledge between participants. Conversation implies acommonly held view of the world, a shared subjective reality that is taken for granted.

Technical measures and features of the language used to make a printed medium

suggest the presence of speech:

1) the idea ofcueing implies that a model of register or dialect or mode can be assigned

to a text even on the basis of some very small segments within its total language. The

cueing effectiveness of small details has occasionally been acknowledged in

sociolinguistics and dialectology

2) typography and orthography

24


25/38

3) phonemes

4) contrastive stress

5) information structure

Halliday maintains that speech and writing chop up the flow of language into units of

information in quite separate ways.

6) register

7) syntax and morphology

8) deixis -in language consists of the devices which link a text with the time and place of

communication and with the participants. Briefly, these devices consist of:

Indicators of person (personal pronouns)

Indicators of time

Indicators of place

In newspaper discourse, deixis provides important cues to the oral mode

9) modality (signify judgments as to truth (correct), likelihood (certainly,might),

desirability (regrettable), obligations (should, ought to)

Modality suggests the presence of an individual subjectivity behind the printed

text

10) speech acts These linguistic features contribute to an illusion of conversationanl

style.

6.1 MODALITY

Readership or audience research has shown that people have set ideas about the

reliability of the news, regarding television as less biased than the Press, BBC more

impartial than ITV. People's attitudes to the media are narrow and normative. The result

of these limitations is that people experience a much more restricted range of mental

models than their society affords in potential

The method of applied language analysis known as critical linguistics was

devised in response to such problems of fixed, invisible ideology permeating language.

Any aspect of linguistic structure can carry ideological significance but certain

areas of language are particularly implicated in coding social values.

We now move from the ideational function, the representation of propositional

content, to the interpersonal, the mediation of personal roles and social relationships.

One the one hand, it is the essence of representation that it is always

representation from some ideological point of view, as managed through the inevitable

25


26/38

structuring force of transitivity and lexical categorization; on the other hand,

interpersonal practices always have some statement to make, and often work by implied

propositions or presuppositions.

The first clearly interpersonal feature to be mentioned is modality. Modality

can informally be regarded as 'comment' or'attitude', obviously by definition ascribable

to the source of the text, and explicit or implicit in the linguistic stance taken by the

writer. It is useful for our purposes to distinguish four types of comment. They have

technical names in modal logic, but in play terms they have to do with:

a) truth

b) obligation

c) permission

d) desirability

Truth

A writer must always indicate a commitment to the truth of any proposition he

utters. Truth modality varies in strength along a scale from absolute confidence

e.g. "The Tories will not make an election pledge..." Daily Express,18 April 1986

down through various degrees of lesser certainty:

e.g. "The best bet at Edinburgh this afternoon could be no restraint..." Guardian, 7 July

1986A straightforward truth claim does not need any explicit modal verb. Modality

can also be indicated by some adverbs like 'certainly' or by modal adjectives 'unlikely'.

Obligation

In this case, the writer stipulates that the participants in a proposition ought to

perform the actions specified in the proposition:

"The campaign against terrorism and its sponsors mustbe continous...Terrorist reprisals

must be punished in their turn." Daily Express, 18 April 1986

Othermodal auxiliaries used to convey this meaning are 'should' and 'ought

to'.

Permission

Here the writer bestows permission to do something on the participants.

Interestingly, the auxiliaries used also have a more neutral usage under 'truth' or

'prediction': 'may', 'can'

Any time in the next ten years young can switch the Plan into, say, a saving scheme.

Insurance advertisement, Guardian, 7 February 1987

Desirability

26


27/38

The writer indicates approval or disapproval of the state of affairs communicated

by the propositions. Implicit in (b) and (c), this modality is explicit in a range of

evaluative adjectives and adverbs. It is endemic in the Press, particularly in editorials,

and especially in the tabloids.

"Home Secretary Douglas Hurd's plan to beat the prison officers' dispute... barmy"

Sun, 19 April 1986.

6.2 INTERPERSONAL ELEMENTS: SPEECH ACTS

Whereas traditional linguistics had regarded language as primarily a channel for

communicating ideas or facts about the world, modern trends emphasize that language is

also a 'practice', a mode of action. As we are saying something, we are also doing

something through speaking. To J. L. Austin and J. R. Searle we owe the notion of

"illocutionary act' or "speech act" (Fowler 1991:88). Since newspapers both contain

and report speech acts, it will be useful to describe and illustrate the concept briefly.

A speech act is a form of words which, if written in appropriate conditions,

actually constitutes the performance of an action. Austin calls them

"performatives" (Fowler 1991: 88)

Speech acts are integrally enmeshed with the systems of conventions that

constitute a social and political world, and speech act analysis offers critical linguistics a

direct point of entry into some practices through which society's ideas and rules are

constructed.

There are verbs naming many thousands of speech acts in English: 'request',

'stipulate', 'ban', 'declare', 'announce', 'solicit'. The existence of so many verbs naming acts

of speech testifies to the importance of linguistic practices in human interaction; and this

centrality of speech acts as events is born out by the high density of speech act verbs in

newspapers, society's major mode of representation of its important and habitual

processes; for example:

"In the Commons, Mr. Kinnock indicated deep concern about the American action.

He demanded...that the evidence should be published, accused the Foreign Secretary

of possible duplicity in dealing with European allies..." Guardian,16 April 1986

The significance of discourse derives only from an interaction between language

structure and the context in which it is used.

7. DISCRIMINATION IN DISCOURSE: GENDER AND POWER

27


28/38

The world presented by the popular Press is a culturally organized set of

categories, rather than a collection of unique individuals. We manage the world, make

sense of it by categorizing phenomena, including people. Having established a person

as an example of a type, our relationship with that person is simplified, we think about

the person in terms of the qualities which we attribute to the category already preexisting

in our minds. As we regard the category of person as displaying strongly predictable

attributes or behaviour, the category may harden into a stereotype, an extremely

simplified mental model which fails to see individual features, only the values that are

believed to be appropriate to the type. This is, of course, a basic ideological process at

work. The things we see and think about are constructed according to a sheme of values,

not entities directly perceived. Newspaper discourse benefit of the dense presence of

category labels, labels that tell us about the structure of the ideological world

represented by a certain type of newspaper. These categories are in a colloquial

register (fan), or a serious and straight register (police officer), or in an explicitely

derogatory register (junkie)

Groups such as 'young married woman', 'immigrants', 'teachers', 'capitalists' and

royalty are imaginary, socially constructed concepts. These fictitious 'groups' have

conceptual solidity for the culture, but typically do not display social solidarity.

Language provides names for categories, and so helps to set their boundaries andrelationships. Partly lexical instruments of categorization, partly ready-made syntactic

structures contribute to the reproduction of discrimination in discourse.

8. Journalism in the market place

A central argument of defenders of the free market is that freedom in the

economic market is a necessary condition for democracy to flourish. The role of

journalism and the press is central to this argument: they supply the link "between the

market and democracy" (Belsey and Chadwick 1992: 15)

A free market brings with it a free press that supplies the diversity of opinion

and access to information that a citizenry requires in order to act in a democratic,

responsible manner.

Journalism as a practice does have a necessary role in democratic societies, the

market undermines the relation between journalism and democracy. There is a tension

between the internal goals of journalism and the market contexts in which it operates;

and the market inhibits the dissemination of information and diverse opinions required of

28


29/38

a democratic society.

A free market is necessary for a free press and a free press is a central

component of free speech. The market is the best institutional arrangement for ensuring

that the press can act as a check on government, as a "fourth estate" (Belsey and

Chadwick 1992: 18) that checks the powers of the other three.

While the practice of journalism and the needs of democracy are well suited to

each other, the market is a friend of neither.

8.1 A FREE PRESS

The press and society Britain has a free press. There is no censor and no

licensing, and anyone can publish a newspaper provided they do not break the law in

doing so. The press is in private hands. There is no Government controlled newspaper,

no Government shareholding in a newspaper. The freedom of the press exists by

consensus and the freedom British newspapers enjoy and for which journalists fought

over the centuries has to be guarded by editors, by political parties and by people.

The national press presents political standpoints ranging from the solid Right to

the extreme Left. National newspapers serve a variety of social groups. There are also

daily and weekly newspapers and magazines published in support of religious, political

fringe groups, trade unions, the entertainment industry, homosexuals, even the brewing

and licensing trade. Anyone who can find the money-and the readers-can start a

newspaper.

An advantage of the new printing technology is that a small newspaper can in

theory be produced cheaply with few staff.

8.2 OBJECTIVITY AND COMMENT

The charge of bias in news coverage, which is made about newspapers from

time to time, is difficult to refute satisfactorily. As we have seen, the very act of news

selection involves a bias towards a certain content. Factors of geography, personality and

a newspaper's special interests all play a part in this selection. No newspaper can say,

therefore, that its pages represent an unbiased selection of world's or national news. Nor

can newspapers published in any other country, or under any other political system, claim

this.

Concerning the problem of bias, a sociologist Professor Mc Quail suggested that

29


30/38

news bias had something to do with acceptance of "standardized models" (Hodgson

1996: 31) for news situations and the growth of "news stereotypes" (Hodgson 1996:

31) to which certain types of news were subconsciously made to fit. This situation was a

consequence of the pressure of putting a newspaper together.

If I may quote another source which pretends "there is no fundamentally non-

ideological, apolitical, non-partisan news gathering and reporting system."

(Hodgson 1996: 32) Professor McQuail's own conclusion was that in view of the

pressures at work in newspaper production "it would be unrealistic to expect a

newspaper to match the criteria of other branches of inquiry". (Hodgson 1996: 32)

The accepted political partisanship of a newspaper need not inhibit a reporter

from doing an objective job on his assignment provided he remembers that the function is

to uncover facts and not to prove something. To some extent newspapers have

themselves to blame for the suspicion of bias that exists in the public's mind. An editor, if

challenged, would say that the aim in news writing is to be objective, to present the facts

as they are found, any arranging of them being for the purpose of readability. This is the

reporter's job. Comment and analysis are reserved for experts who write articles, mostly

under their own name, about the news or as background to the news. These are called

features.

Editors tend to present reports from experts writing under their own name whichare more correctly pieces of comment and analysis and are therefore strictly features.

The increasing use of news by-lines is an invitation to reporters to impose their own

personalities and analysis on news situations and thus aspire to the rank of experts.

Thus a blurring of news with comment begins to take place which can give rise to

accusations that the newspaper is guilty of bias in its news reporting.

It is unlikely that the human mind can ever be rid totally of subconscious bias.

Nevertheless, where the reporting of news is concerned, the public has the right to

expect objectivity as far as is humanly possible and a journalist has a duty to exercise it.

However, is there only one way in which one can grasp the significance of

events? For if there are more ways than one, then it may be that acknowledging and

allowing for divergent views is in fact not only a more practicable solution but also a

truer to the divergences of opinions in our complex society.

8.3 "Agenda-setting" (Curran 2002: 158)

The ideological role of the media

30


31/38

Recent research into the effects of the media shows how the media reproduce a

dominant ideology. Writers have recognized that the media and their effects cannot be

studied in isolation from the other institutions and structures of society.

The term 'agenda setting' refers to a process whereby the terms of reference for

debate are fixed to suit the interests of the powerful . It should be stressed that setting

an agenda does not prohibit all debate or disagreement - it merely sets the boundaries

within which the deabate should take place.

For example a person presents a political aspect of public concern emphasizing its

advantageous consequences. The others are forced to insist on the benefits of that

political act as if negative sides would not appear. Such a person attempts to impress us

with his "democratic" (Barrat 1986: 52) approach, with his openess. A number of key

issues would never be discussed because they were not included in the agenda. Why not

to debate an issue from more points of view? It may have been in the interest of the

speaker/writer to leave out certain items, but we certainly cannot assume they have no

bearing on the matter.

Thus through a subtle form of ideological control a certain influence is

imposed on the writer. Newspapers might provide an illusion of openess as a forum

for competing points of view, but this is all circumscribed within an overall

discourse or agenda which sets the limits to what shall, and more importantly,what shall not, be discussed by society.

9. ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Nothing has exercised the minds of journalists more consistently in recent years

than the state of the English language, its general usage and its role in journalism. A

general consensus has emerged that the basics of English language are no longer taught

in schools, nor an application of them developed in universities; that literacy levels have

fallen, and that it has become impossible to maintain journalistic standards of English.

Keith Waterhouse, a columnist in the Daily Mail and a respected authority on clear

journalistic English, observed: "Back in the quaint hot metal era you could not get a job

in newspapers without a sound grasp of English. and that included grammar...".

(Bromley 1994: 162)

A 'sound grasp of English' included at least grammar, punctuation and spelling,

and tests were devised and revised to encourage good English and discourage the

amateurs. Points of contention included the proper use of the apostrophe, and the

31


32/38

littering of copy with commas in almost every place except the correct ones. Some

newspaper executives worried that declining literacy was being reflected in falling

circulations. They suggested that papers should use more illustrations to tap into a

'graphic literacy' , especially among the young. Rules were no longer necessarily

applicable. Advertising to, fractured English to make its points. And, it had to be said,

newspaper headlines, which should be idiomatic, developed their own syntax. A great

deal of the use to which English was put in the "media was not telling but selling".

(Bromley 1994: 163)

THE ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL NEWS

The title of the first political article is"Galloway faces new oil cash quiz" and

appeared in the Daily Mail, on Thursday, December 22, 2005. It is placed in the News

Politics section (STH) and refers to homeland. The topic of this news is the accusation

of an MP, George Galloway for having received oil cash from Saddam Hussein. It is an

informative type of news item because it wants to enlighten the reader about certain

aspects concerning Galloway's humanitarian acts.

The headline of this article is the second biggest one and thus indicates the

second most important story. This type of headline bears the name of 'half lead'. The

title of the news manages to compress the essence in a few words because following a

set-rule answers the 'who' and 'what' elements. The readers attention is captured if these

two pieces of information are somehow relevant for his knowledge. The theme is

'Galloway' and the rest of the utterance stands for the rheme 'faces new oil cash quiz'.

The theme is topical because it has to do with information conveyed in the discourse.

The intro. of the news item concentrates in a nutshell the leading idea of the whole event

through setting the local, chronological boundaries of this story. The first paragraph

subjects to the common word order i.e. S(ubject)+V(erb)+O(bject) 'Galloway

32


33/38

faced ...questions...'. This MP is the crucial 'element' around which the Daily Mail

reporter organizes his text, and the one to which it wants to give prominence.

Concerning titles and descriptions, the MP is identified after the F(irst) N(ame)+L(ast)

N(ame) model (George Galloway). Besides the 'who' and 'what' elements', the writer

also feels the need to answer the 'when' element because we as readers appreciate

accuracy. The last part of the paragraph 'that he received oil cash from Sadam Hussein' is

subsidiary information, since tries to give more details about an already mentioned

fact.

The second paragraph is built on the same pattern, except the fact that the

reader wishes to make clear his opinion about this person and thus offers a more precise

description of this MP, both hierarchically (MP) and ethically 'maverick'. The writer

slightly changes the perspective, through offering Galloway's personal point of view.

Thus these pieces of information can be considered new ones and relevant as the

rendering advances. The 'who' element is given together with the 'what' element (has

denied). Even though the 'how' element rarely appears, still here is the case because we

are interested in the corectness of his way of achieving richness ('by the controversial

food-for-oil programmae in Iraq').

The third paragragh comes with a totally different point of view i.e. the

Charity Comissions one, thus the 'who element is an organization. This time, wereceive new information rooted in time with the help of the adverb 'yesterday'.

Accusations procced with the occurence of new information (1 million charity), which

emphasizes the sensational part of this new revelation. '...launched another investigation'

is the 'what' element, which is followed by subsidiary (debating the source of the

investigation'). In this structure we also have the answer to the ' why' element ('to help a

sick Iraqi girl,Mariam') the following paragraph is subsidiary because it insists on the

Iraqi girls situation.

The fifth paragraph has as its theme the 'Commision' again but this time the

writer questions the source of those funds and their rightfulness. The last paragraph

does not play the role of a conclusion, it rathergives a last clew. The'who' element is the

'programme', the 'what' element is 'allowed Iraq to sell limited amounts of oil ' , then

comes the 'why' element 'to buy food and humanitarian supplies', the question is ' how'

'without breaching UN sanctions'.

The piece of news tries to dechiper Galloway's duplicitary acts. The flow of

information is assured by the presence of the same subject in two paragraphs.

Transitional words also assure the further linking of relevant pieces of information.

33


34/38

Such words in this text are: that, but, how, where, whether, who, without. Usually

paragraphs begin with the 'who' element of the previous sentence. Every paragraph

refers back to a key word which then triggers further debates . There seem to be two

narrative lines: 1- starting with Galloway; 2-starting with the Commission.

Lexical density is assured by the use of strong verbs and nouns which

strenghten the impersonal voice but nominalization cannot miss too : claims, denied,

personally, controversial, Charity Commission, launched, investigation, inquiries, United

Nations, trustees, limited amounts, sanctions, business associate.

Concerning tenses, in the headline it is the present tense used which gives a sense

of urgency, while in the copy prevail the past tense and the present perfect, since actions

already have happened but some of us might experience its consequences.

A news article is like the spider's web where key words form a precise map and

the reporter must link these elements in order to render it to us in a logical manner.

The second article lies in the News

Politics section of The Times, Friday May 26,

2006. The topic of this political article is a

funding reform proposed by Labour,concerning funding limits. This news item is

informative, too, because tells us about the

future plans of the Labour Party. The title is a

good sample of concise language rendering

what the text is really about. The headline

contains the 'who' and 'what' core elements,

which are absolutely necesarry to attract the

reader's attention ('Labour plans funding

reform').

Even though is a short copy, well the

structuring of information is foggy because

the reporter tries to present the issue from a

certain point of view and in the meanwhile he

wants to give a very detailed account. Subsidiary

parts of the sentences makes us lose the relevant

points of the news. Transitivity, indeed enriches

34


35/38

the possible ways of rendering an issue allowing us to highlight it as we wish. The intro.

is built around the 'who' elment but in this case agency is immaterial (system of tax),

which is followed by subsidiary part (that treats political donations like gifts to charity).

Fortunatelly, the 'what' element appears, too (willl be among the options for reform

proposed by Labour). The paragraph ends with the 'when' element (after the outcry

over secret loans) , which according to my opinion could have been ignored.

The next paragraph starts once again with a 'who element which is actually

inanimate (plans) thus dwells on a weird word order where everything is upside-down.

Here, too, subsidiary information finds its place, turning the explanations into

exhaustive accounts. In these two paragraphs, information is presented in a particular

structure of meaning. Agents according to the passive voice pattern, remain in the back

of the sentence. This partly happens because people are interested in consequences,

measures, future plans and not so much in the doer of an action. The people who will be

positively affected by these actions (group affected participants) are the Labour

followers. The writer, regarding tenses, prefers the infinitive constructions and especially

the present tense even though these plans refer to the future. We, as readers get a

feeling of a hypothetical situation which does not have many chances to be materialized.

The third paragraph begins with the title 'Ms' which appears as a neutral

alternative for the identifying of a female person. Finally, the writer starts the report witha real 'whoelement because it is necessary to link all these mighty plans to their creators.

They did not appear out of the blue, they are the result of Labour brainstorming.

The last two paragraphs return to the inanimate 'who' theme (draft,

document) and the passive accompanies the first sentence. The whole article is using

lofty words and structures thus is a good example of overt comment. The language of

the news must be non-abstract, very down-to-earth because it is written for everybody.

According to the logical relation between sentences and paragraphs, the

writer missed to slice up the flow of information so that we could digest it after

reading it. Transitional words are: that, after, thus, and. Lexical density is achieved

through the presence of a highly specialised language but I fell that the writer

exaggerated .

"Blair condemns English fan attacks (Daily Mail, 21 July 2006)

"Tony Blair has joined the condemnation of racist attacks on people wearing

English tops in Scotland. In one incident, a seven-year-old boy was punched in the head

35


36/38

while he played football with his father in Edinburgh. And in another, a disabled man was

dragged from his car in Aberdeen and given a black eye. Both were wearing English

football shirts at the time. At Prime Minister's question time in the Commons, Anne

Begg, Labour MP for Aberdeen South, invited Mr Blair to join the "vast majority" of

Scots in condemning the violent attack in the city-Mr.Blair replied: "I am sure everybody

condemnes what was an appaling and totally unjustifiable attack."

The headline points to the problem; unknown people attacked a young boy

and a disabled man because they were wearing English tops in Scotland . The copy

informs us about a regrettable incident which is highlighted in order to prevent in the

future similar happenings.

In the first paragraph the 'who element is Tony Blair and the rest is the rheme.

The writer starts the tex

Master's Degree Paper

Documents

Transcript of Master's Degree Paper