Introducing the Language of the News

A Student's Guide

M. Grazia Busa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135144555
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Introducing the Language of the News is a comprehensive introduction to the language of news reporting. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, the book provides an accessible analysis of the processes that produce news language, and discusses how different linguistic choices promote different interpretations of news texts.

Key features include:

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• comprehensive coverage of both print and online news, including news design and layout, story structure, the role of headlines and leads, style, grammar and vocabulary

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• a range of contemporary examples in the international press, from the 2012 Olympics, to political events in China and the Iraq War.

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• chapter summaries, activities, sample analyses and commentaries, enabling students to undertake their own analyses of news texts

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• a companion website with extra activities, further readings and web links.

Written by an experienced researcher and teacher, this book is essential reading for students studying English language and linguistics, media and communication studies, and journalism.

Chapter 1

Making news

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This chapter presents an overview of the media industry, discussing in particular the factors that frame the news, such as newspaper ownership, market pressure, journalists' subdivision of roles and responsibilities in the newsroom, time deadlines, and space-on-the-page constraints. The last section discusses the impact of technology and multimedia on news production.

1.1 News as texts

What is news and what characterizes news texts? News texts are written to report information on new or current events and are relayed to a mass audience by print, broadcast or the Internet. News texts are shaped by news agencies' objectives and agendas and the kind of reception expected from the audience. Behind their creation lies a complex process involving organizational, economic and socio-political factors. This chapter explains what is involved in news creation, focusing in particular on the factors that drive the news world and affect news-making and -delivering.

1.2 Who controls the news?

An important factor affecting news and journalism is ownership. In the past it was often the case that newspapers' owners would use their paper to convey their own political views and interests. Today newspaper owners' interference in the editorial issues, in the form of direct control of the choice and content of the paper, is not as frequent — though big owners like Rupert Murdoch will still occasionally get involved in the editorial content of their papers (House of Lords Select Committee on Communications, 2008: 34). Ownership is more likely to have an indirect influence on the news output. For example, owners can influence the editorial contents and agenda simply by appointing the newspaper's editor. This will give owners some assurance that the editor will present news content that is in line with their viewpoint.

Another factor that affects news-making is owners' concern with short-term profits as opposed to medium-term investments. Owners who are less concerned with immediate profit can invest in the newspaper, and hire more journalists to devise new layouts, find new stories or present new perspectives on common stories. This will affect the quality of the paper and increase its chances of appealing to wide audiences. On the other hand, owners seeking short-term profits will cut their investments in journalism, for example by reducing the number of staff or saving on investigative reporting, with an effect on the overall practices and quality of the paper.

In recent decades large global media organizations, and huge management companies behind them, have taken over a number of newspapers, dramatically reducing the number of independent news suppliers. For example, in Britain eight owners dominate the national press; twenty publishers own 85% of all the regional market and 96% of the total weekly circulation. Most of the companies that own national newspapers also have large holdings in other media enterprises: in the US, eight companies control the majority of the media; in the world, six multinational companies effectively control the leading media. The media giants are looking with particular interest at the Asian market, where new media corporations are forming and linking up with the big international players.

The consolidation of news organizations in the hands of large media enterprises also affects online news. This is provided by a variety of sources, a major one being publishers of print newspapers, who maintain sites issuing news that is similar, in both presentation and content, to that of their printed papers. In addition, a number of mainstream media and Internet-based organizations provide content that may be either originated directly for the site or aggregated from well-established news sources. These include large TV networks, such as CNN (www.cnn.com), ABC (abc.go.com), BBC (news.bbc.co.uk), and Microsoft-owned NBC (www.nbcnews.com), that have been able to use their infrastructure and popularity to transfer their dominance from the mainstream media to the Internet and create a strong online presence. Other Internet corporations, such as AOL Inc. (www.aol.com), Google (news.google.com), Yahoo! (news.yahoo.com), have leveraged their popularity as search engines to expand into the world of news providers. With their ubiquitous online presence, they all can attract huge international audiences and boost profits with advertising revenues.

One of the consequences of newspaper acquisitions by large corporations is that news creation is only one of many fields in which they operate, and these are companies whose main, or only, purpose is profit. The concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few conglomerates also poses the risk of a lack of competition and diversity between different suppliers. When only a few companies represent the interests of a minority elite controlling the public airwaves, there is a higher chance that main news sites might present biased views on the events they report. On the other hand, the coexistence of different ownerships helps to ensure that a variety of views and interests are represented in the press.

In addition to a press dominated by big monopolies and organizations, all countries have an ‘alternative’ press, owned by smaller organizations, which often have strong political, religious or ethnic affiliations. This kind of press often presents a valid alternative to mainstream local and national press, but its circulation tends to be limited and its impact on the national debate only marginal.

Similarly, on the Internet, news is also available on websites maintained by small organizations or individual ‘bloggers’ who comment on the news, provide links, and occasionally even report stories. Blogging has in fact had an increasing influence on news reporting, and most online papers have included a ‘Blogs’ section in their daily editions.

Whatever the news provider, it is important to emphasize that, even if news was once the exclusive domain of professional journalists, it is now being delivered by a number of different actors, who may vary in competence and professional background, but all contribute to the ongoing transformation of the world of the news. The proliferation of news providers offers a variety of sources of information for consumers of news, who can now decide to get both the mainstream and the alternative perspectives and thus form their own opinions on the reported event.

1.3 Economic factors

News agencies are very much like any other business: their aim is to generate profit. While the revenues a newspaper makes from the customers' payments at the newsstand are relatively small, the key factor in generating profit is sales and circulation: that is, the number of papers in circulation on an average day, both through subscriptions and newsstand sales. Sales and circulation are important because they determine the paper's appeal and service charge to advertisers, who are the paper's real source of profit. Newspaper publishers are therefore always striving to keep sales and circulation high, so as to attract advertising. When sales and circulation fail to meet advertisers' requirements, papers may have to change their market segment and modify their contents to accommodate advertisers; in the worst-case scenario, they may have to close down, or look for an alternative source of patronage.

However, newspaper readership and circulation is on the decline in most countries of the world. In part this is due to the advent of the Internet, which offers many ways to get news from a variety of sources at no cost to the user. Web- or mobile-based platforms also help to make news services ubiquitously and continuously accessible to readers through portable devices such as cell phones, tablets and games consoles. In fact, it has been shown that the use of new technologies to access news may be on the rise: teens and adults increasingly use portable devices to go online, and this is likely to increase the importance of digital platforms for reading news. Another reason for falling newspaper readership is changing lifestyles: today's fast-paced life leaves people little time to read newspapers, so news offered in a condensed, synoptic format, through mobile devices or free papers (see below), is often more appealing to a general audience than what traditional papers provide.

On their side, advertisers now have a wider range of ways to place their ads than before, and the Internet offers the option of targeting advertising at specific audiences and at lower cost than using print. Because it is so much cheaper, advertisers are spending more on Internet advertising and less and less on print.

In response to current challenges and to boost sales and circulation, newspapers may resort to promotional techniques, including price-cutting and ‘giveaways’ (for example, coupons), special editions, or funny pages (the comic strip sections carried in most American newspapers). To meet the readership's expectations of both the form and content of the paper's output, newspapers may also focus more on entertainment and ‘soft’ (as opposed to ‘hard’) news: something that is part of an overall tendency towards the ‘tabloidization’ of news (see section 1.7 below). Finally, decisions on content may also reflect pressure from advertisers, who may want a say in the paper's output in order to guarantee a target for their ads.

Because advertising pays for most of a newspaper's costs, the final reader pays little or nothing for the newspaper. In recent years a number of free publications have appeared and have enjoyed great success, particularly among the young. Typically, such newspapers are tabloid in format (i.e., smaller-sized papers) and provide readers with a sort of news bulletin, that is, a condensed version of news on a vast array of things: local, national and international events, lifestyle, technology, media, sports, celebrities, movies and service (weather forecasts, comics, horoscope, TV-guide, movie or theatre tips, crosswords). Free newspapers have been introduced in almost every European country and in several markets in the United States, Canada, South America, Australia and Asia. The market leader newspaper, Metro, distributes eight million free copies daily, while other companies publish at least 22 million copies. Worldwide, at least 60 million people read these 30 million copies daily. While traditional newspapers continue losing their appeal, free newspapers are doing very well, especially among the young.

As for online news, advertising is the only source of revenues for most providers. This is because the access to the majority of online news websites is free, even though some newspapers have started charging subscription fees. In fact, the newspaper business is betting heavily on web advertising revenues to secure its survival, as visitors to Internet news sites continue to grow while print circulation and advertising swoon. With the Internet and the possibility to reach huge audiences internationally, newspapers also see an opportunity to raise their international profiles. This is particularly true for any online news publication that is written in English, because it can be read by millions of people in many countries of the world.

1.4 News as the work of many

Many people collaborate in the process of news making: reporters, editors, and managers. Editors and reporters work in the newsroom, the place where the news is created, while managers take care of the financial and administrative matters of the newspaper, as well as the workplace in general.

Reporters are briefed and assigned a story to cover by the news editor. They gather information, check it for accuracy and write the original copy (that is, the article), usually according to the newspaper's own house style. Reporters are also responsible for getting the best pictures to go with the story — they may take the pictures themselves or ask photographers to take them. After the reporter has written a story, this gets sent to the news editor for approval and then to the sub-editor for revision.

Editors run the editorial activities in the newsroom; they make decisions regarding the direction that the paper w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Language and texts
• 1 Making news
• 2 Defining news
• 3 Sourcing news
• 4 Conveying meaning through design
• 5 Structuring the story
• 6 Headline, lead and story proper
• 7 The tools of the trade
• 8 Reporting information and evaluating likelihood
• 9 The power of words
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Reference
• Index