67mónica V

TEMA 67.
LOS MEDIOS DE COMUNICACIÓN EN LENGUA

INGLESA (I):
EL ESTILO PERIODÍSTICO. LA PRENSA. PERIÓDICOS
DE CALIDAD Y PERIÓDICOS SENSACIONALISTAS
Mónica Crespo
67. Los medios de comunicación en lengua inglesa (1): El estilo periodístico. La prensa. Periódicos de calidad y periódicos
sensacionalistas.
0. INTRODUCTION
1. THE JOURNALISTIC STYLE
a. Providing information
i. News story
ii. Feature article
b. Presenting opinions
i. Opinion articles
ii. Letters to the director
c. Language and style
i. Headlines
2. THE ROLE OF THE PRESS
3. THE PRESS IN BRITAIN
a. Quality papers
b. Popular papers
c. Freesheets
d. Local press
e. Magazines
f. The Press Council
4. THE PRESS IN USA
5. NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND THE PRESS
6. CONCLUSION
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 2

C/ Rumbau. 1 -3°. 17a .46001 Valencia Tf. 963 51 9522 -963290 849. Fax. 963 94 33 05
http:l/www.cienciasdelhombre21.com E-Mail: ich-tyd@digitalmk.com
sensacionalistas.
0. INTRODUCTION
This topic is about mass media. These media appeared as a means to reflect the day-to-day
events occurring in a given country or area and, at the beginning, the only universal mass
media was the written press – the newspaper. This situation has changed with the times.
Nowadays, the written press –newspapers and magazines- are still mass media, but they are no
longer the most popular ones. This role was first assumed by the radio, then by the television.
Nowadays, television is still the most widely used mass media, both to get information and to
get entertainment. One of the main reasons is the immediacy: radio channels and TV stations
are able to provide information immediately after an event has happened, unlike newspapers.
Moreover, the great development of internet, and the possibility it offers to select the
information the reader is interested in, and even to participate, is also influencing the mass
media sector.
In this topic we will focus on the written press: newspapers and magazines. (Later
references to “the press” will always mean the written press.) Audio-visual media will be
studied in topic 68.
We must consider why, in front of the competition presented by other media, the press
does still survive, and is still fairly popular with the reading audience. There seems to be more
than one reason. First, the press does not only offer information, but an analysis of this
information which can not be offered by radio or TV, since they only present the pieces of
news as soon as the events happen, without having time to analyse them. Second, newspapers
offer a “line of thought”, or ideological orientation which readers or a particular paper are
supposed to share, so that the analysis of the events is close to the readers’ own. Third, most
newspapers have added interned editions to the traditional paper editions. In these internet
editions, the immediacy is achieved, and moreover the readers can select the information they
want to read and the images attached to it.
1. THE JOURNALISTIC STYLE

Writing for the press is different than writing for any other purpose, for different reasons:
the kind of stories, the dependence of sources, the fact of writing in front of other people and
normally under pressure, the need to adapt your writing to the paper’s style and to the
expected audience…

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The press is accepted to have two main functions: providing information and
creating/communicating opinions. Each newspaper has a particular editorial line, that is to say,
a set or ideas, ideological orientation and political ideas, which is mostly shared by its readers.
In fact most readers choose which newspaper they want to read according to this editorial line,
since they find the fact that their ideas are shared and printed reassuring. This editorial line
will impregnate all the contents of a news paper: the selection of which events are considered
to be pieces of news, the treatment they receive, … Taking into account these two main
functions of newspapers, we can divide the different texts we may find in a given newspaper
in two main groups: those texts which provide information, and those texts which provide
opinions.
a. Providing information
i. News story
News is the basic material for the media, and consequently the news story is the basic
form of writing. These texts demand simple, straightforward prose, complete understanding of
the subject, conciseness and precision in the use of the language.
For an event to be considered a news item, it must conform at least one of the following
criteria: causing an impact in the reader, proximity in time, prominence and relation to the
readers’ interest, proximity, presenting a conflict, being bizarre or unusual, currency. The
more of these criteria an event conforms, the higher the possibility of making it into a news
story. We must also take into account the editorial line. No newspaper can cover all the events
which happen in a single day, so that they will choose which ones are more likely to be
interesting to their readers, and event to attract new readers, and leave others apart. Moreover,
and in spite of the theory that news stories present the facts as they happen, we must also
remember that the editorial line of the newspaper will also indicate how a particular piece of
news is treated: the amount of space it is given, what aspects are highlighted and which are
suppressed… This can be easily seen by means of comparing the treatment that a given piece
of news receives in different newspapers.
There is a traditional formula to summarise what every news story should convey. It is
called the “6-w rule”: a news story must answer the following questions:
- What happened?
- When did it happen?
- Where did the event happen?

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- Why did it happen?

- Who did it?
- Why did it happen?
- How did it happen?
The reader will demand information on these questions, and the journalist must include the
answer to all of them in his/her text. Very often, the answer to these questions appears in the
first paragraph of the news story, which is called “lead”, and is sometimes written in a
different typographic style than the rest of the article. The reason is simple: the reader finds
the fundamental information at the very beginning and, once the basic facts are known, s/he
can decide whether s/he wants to go on reading or not.
News stories usually follow one of the following structures:
1. Inverted pyramid: This is the most common one. It concentrates the most important
and interesting information at the top, so that the readers can get the essential facts and
then move to other story if they chose to. This structure is also very convenient for the
paper, since if a new story arises and they need to cut short the existing ones, they only
have to delete the last sentences, which will always carry the less important
information.
2. Spiral: The journalist introduces all the main elements in the lead. In the body of the
story, s/he re-takes each element and goes into progressively greater detail.
3. Pro-con: Conflicting points of view are presenting when dealing with a controversial
story. This structure is often used to enhance the writer’s objectivity.
4. Chronological: Events are presented in a chronological order. It is often done when a
story has been developing through time, so that readers can know in which order
exactly events happened.
The most important parts of the news story are the headline and the lead. There can also be
pre-head or post-head, emphasising some important aspect of the story. Very often, news
stories are accompanied by a photo; in that case, the commentary of the photo is also
important, since it illustrates an important aspect.
ii. Feature article

They have a great deal in common with news stories. The difference is on the emphasis:
feature articles go beyond the facts by trying to discover the interesting sides of an event

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which the basic news stories do no cover, mostly by lack of space. They also humanise the
news, since most of them centre on people and their activities and interests.
Feature articles may vary in structure, but the most used ones are:
1. Anecdotal: An anecdote is used for the introduction of a relevant topic.
2. Suspended interest: Ambiguous paragraphs lead to an unexpected end.
3. Question/answer: An interview shows the character in a theoretically unfiltered way.
Usually, feature articles have a more relaxed style, greater amount of detail, descriptions
of actions, peoples and places and more quotes than the news stories. In these articles, the lead
–if it appears at all- is less important than in the news stories; the reason is that these articles
do not present a completely new story, but develop an existing one, or talk about some topic
of interest or relevance to the readers, and they are supposed to read the features articles
thoroughly, and not to be interested merely in the most bare facts.
Since feature articles require a lot of space in the newspaper, they are usually printed in
Sunday’s special editions, either on the newspapers or on the accompanying magazines.
b. Presenting opinions
i. Opinion article
In this kind of articles, an opinion is expressed; they are usually about a currently
controversial topic. These articles are divided in two main kinds:
a) The newspaper’s opinion is expressed in the Editorial Article. It is signed by the
director of the paper (or not signed at all), but the director is responsible for this opinion, if
any legal action is taken. Editorial articles tend to have a fixed place in the newspaper.
b) All the newspapers have collaborators who write about current topics. If these
collaborations occur at fixed lapses of time (weekly, monthly…) they are called “columns”.
Columnists are free to write what they think, be it in accordance to the editorial line of the
newspaper or not. In fact, many newspapers hire columnists with opposed views so as to
enhance their objectivity. Apart from columnists, all newspapers hire specialised collaborators
in a given topic when an important event occurs. In all these articles, the writer is responsible
for his/her opinions.
The structure of opinion articles may vary, but in general they have an introduction in
which the topic is presented, and a main body, where it is developed. The body can be

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expository or argumentative. Often, there is also a conclusion, which will reinforce the main
ideas.
The aim of this kind of articles is not only to offer an opinion, but also to influence the
reader. That’s why the language is highly suggestive, and rhetorical devices are commonly
used.
ii. Letters to the director

Letters to the director are very special texts within newspapers, since they are not written
by the journalists, but by the readers. This section is open to collaboration, and readers are free
to write about any topic they feel like. The newspaper merely transcribes these opinions,
which are frequently lively and offer the vision real people has on topics. Obviously, these
texts do not follow the stylistic characteristics of the rest of the texts in the paper.
Sometimes, a kind of “written dialogue” on a given topic arises among readers, who use
the newspaper to publicly debate on their point of view.
c. Language and style

The journalistic style, in general, is characterised by the following traits:
a) Appealing to the reader: The register may be neutral, descriptive or emotional,
depending of the attitude the intended readers are likely to support. It can also be technical or
conversational, depending on the topic.
Also to appeal to the readers, thematisation is carefully chosen: the focus of the attitude
and the approach to the topic. Humour, irony or rhetorical devices may be used to create
special effects.
b) Clarity: An article must show coherence and cohesion (see topic 30). One of the easiest
ways of achieving this is by using clear linking words which will interweave ideas within the
text.
Clarity is also achieved by means of typographical devices which highlight some words or
ideas. For example, the size of the letters in the headline indicates the relative importance of
the story. Some newspapers write opinion articles in a particular type of letter, so as to clearly
differentiate them from supposedly neutral news stories.

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c) Economy: Both news stories and opinion articles have to state the facts in a relatively
short space, so that any space-saved device will be used: multiple noun pre-modifiers,
suppression of auxiliary verbs, use of the direct, rather than indirect style…
i. Headlines
We must make a brief reference to the style of headlines, which are very important in
English newspapers. They must be to the point, short and appealing. Typography plays an
important role, since the bigger the headline, the more attention it will attract. The style of
headlines has the following general features:
a) Economy devices: Headlines have to be as short as possible, so as to be appealing. For
this reason, any word which is not absolutely necessary for the headline to be understood bill
be suppressed: articles, conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliary verbs… Also, special vocabulary
is used, because it is particularly descriptive, as well as abbreviations and shortenings. (Eg:
“Royal”: a member of the royal family; “MP”: Member of Parliament; “MSP”: Member of the
Scottish Parliament; “GP”: Doctor (from General Practitioner)). As for verb tenses, present
and past is used. The future verb is expressed by the to-infinitive. E.g.: “Royals to visit the
Aussies”: A member of the Royal Family is going to visit Australia.
b) Anticipation: The words chosen for the headline will anticipate the content of the
article, the style and the reporter’s attitude.
c) Appealing to the reader: Headlines usually present puns, that is to say, they play with
the meaning and the sound of the words, so that the headline will be more suggestive.
2. THE ROLE OF THE PRESS

During the 20th century, the press has undergone mayor changes. The introduction of the
radio, first, and TV later on brought about a fierce competition among the media.
In spite of the big competition, newspapers are still attractive to consumers. One reason is
that they provide with opinions and comments on a determinate line of thought, which the
reader is supposed to share. Another reason is the possibility of selecting the information: the
reader only reads the articles s/he is interested in. Yet another reason is that newspapers do not
only provide with news and opinion, but also with another kind of information which is not

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liable to be found on TV or radio: sport’s reporting, job ads, gossip, personal ads, horoscopes
and even, ironically, the daily listing of radio and TV programmes.
We can also add another function of the press: being a vehicle of advertisement. In fact,
most earnings com from advertisement, cover price being only a very small amount in the
total revenue. The necessity of making newspapers attractive to consumers and sponsors led to
the introduction of special pages or sections –home, garden, pets, education, elderly people…
They may encourage advertisers of products concerned with them, since they know that their
ads will reach the target consumers; people who read these pages are already interested in the
topic they deal with.
The effect to which advertisement may affect the form of newspapers can be seen in the
apparition of Sunday supplements. Because colour pictures are often essential to advertisers,
every British national newspaper had included a free colour magazine, usually given with the
Sunday paper, by 1985. The cost of producing it was worth the revenue they generated.
Usually, in these magazines we do not find news stories, but columns, feature articles and
other fixed sections such as literary reviews, horoscope for the week…
One of the most remarkable developments in the 80s and 90s has been the apparition and
spread of free newspapers, known as freesheets. They are delivered door-to-door or
distributed in public areas, such as the metro stations, and they are entirely financed by
advertising revenue. Nowadays, they represent a more serious threat to the existence of
“traditional” newspapers, particularly local ones, that radio or TV, since they include the same
information and advantages, but free of charge.
There is a concentration of newspapers in a few “empires “ – mass media tycoons as
Robert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell in England
3. THE PRESS IN BRITAIN

The British read –and buy- more newspapers than any others, except the Swedes and the
Japanese. In fact, it is a traditional image of England to have breakfast while reading the
newspapers, or to read it while commuting by train.
Although there are also regional newspapers, most British readers choose national
newspapers for their morning news. This is a sign of the weakness of regional identity; it is
not surprising that some of the most outstanding regional newspapers are published in
Scotland, where the nationalistic feeling is stronger.

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The most striking feature of the British national daily press is the difference in standards
and style between the so-called “quality papers” or “broadsheets” (39x60 cm) and “popular
newspapers” or “tabloids” -also called “gutter-press”- (30x37 cm).
a. Quality papers
Apart form their format, there are other significant features that determine whether a
newspaper should be called “quality”. They report national news very carefully, although they
tend to avoid tiring their readers with too much detail on this field, concentrating on major
economic trends, big-party political events or catastrophes. Their headlines are generally
reasonable and they do not devote much space to pictures (no more than 8%). Different kinds
of news can be found in this kind of newspapers: foreign news, home news, human interest
stories, feature articles, notices, financial news, opinion and comments, sport, entertainment,
letters form the readers, weather report and forecast, obituaries, and legal and parliamentary
reports.
Among the quality newspapers, the most important are The Times, The Daily Telegraph,
The Guardian, The Independent. The most famous one has always being considered to be
The Times; this newspaper has the feature of being “the paper of the establishment”. This
means that it does not have a definite political orientation, but it always support the political
line of the party in the power.
Most of them have Sunday equivalents, such as The Sunday Times or The Sunday
Telegraph. These editions devote large sections to literature and arts, and include colour
supplements, which resemble magazines in many ways.
b. Popular newspapers
Popular newspapers draw mainly on such categories as human interest stories, sport and,
of course, commercial advertisements. Over 10% of the available space (apart from ads) is
devoted to pictures, which are as striking and shocking as possible, so as to catch the reader’s
interest. The most important among these are: The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The Daily
Express, The Daily Mail. The all have Sunday supplements.
Popular newspapers can also be called, pejoratively, “tabloids”, “gutter press” or “yellow
press”. This last name refers to the yellow paper – of a worse quality than the paper of
broadsheets - on which they were printed.

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c. Freesheets
By the side of broadsheets and tabloids, another important group of British newspapers are
freesheets or giveaways. They found themselves on advertisement, and are distributed free to
the public.
The freesheets were the first to introduce modern technologies in the process of writing
and printing the newspapers, so as to reduce costs. Their example was soon followed by the
rest of the papers, although it caused several strikes led by the powerful printers’ union, who
feared massive redundancies. As a consequence of the introduction of the new technologies,
most London-based newspapers have moved from Fleet Street (where they were traditionally
situated) to the Docklands.
d. Local press
The role of the local or regional press is more significant as regards evening journals,
which are traditionally bought from news stands when heading home after work.
In contrast to national press, local press tries to avoid supporting a particular party, group
or cause. Their main concern is for local news, and they support and defend local industries.
Among the most important of these newspapers, we can mention The Scotsman, The
Glasgow Herald, The Yorkshire Post, The Birmingham Post…
Some local newspapers are quite profitable on account of their massive local
advertisement, particularly in the field of “small ads”. Their main threat are the giveaways,
which provide the same kind of information for free.
e. Magazines
We should also mention magazines, which cater for almost every trade, profession, sport,
hobby or interest. They are usually weekly or monthly. Among the most famous, we can
mention The Economist, Punch.
f. The Press Council

The Press Council was established in 1953 in order to safeguard the freedom and
reputation of the press, and to keep up the high standard of journalism. Free speech is

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guaranteed providing that journalists say nothing “libellous” or “obscene”. The freedom of the
press is also limited by the Official Secrets Act, which forbids newspapers to publish
information which the Government considers could be harmful to the safety of the state.
4. THE PRESS IN USA

Americans hold the Press in great regard. Journalists are seen as representatives of the
Public before the administrators, entrusted with the task of conveying information,
safeguarding the opening of public life and protecting public interest. (Eg. Watergate).
Newspapers have consistently distinguished themselves for offering unbiased and
comprehensive coverage of news, as well as editorial opinion in support of basic principles of
human liberty and social progress.
The difference between broadsheets and tabloids is not as important in the USA as it is in
Britain; here, the main difference lies in format, but we can find both serious journalism and
gutter press in both kinds of newspapers.
It is not surprising that practically all American newspapers are local, due to difficulties
for nationwide distribution. The main difference among American newspapers is, nowadays,
between “metropolitan papers” and “suburban papers”. Traditionally, newspapers have been
metropolitan, that is, printed on the big cities and distributed to nearby areas, but nowadays
the trend is changing, and suburban or even “rural” newspapers are gaining acceptance. The
reason is that most Americans live in suburban or rural areas, and these new type of papers
offer them some information related to their way of living and interest which is not covered by
the traditional highly-priced metropolitan papers. Suburban newspapers are often published in
a small format.
Apart from this, the most striking feature for an European reader would probably be the
considerable amount of space devoted to the coverage of local affairs, at the expense of
international news, which do not seem very interesting for a fair proportion of the American
readers. In fact, some of the newest suburban papers do not cover international information at
all; they only talk about foreign countries when related to American politics or interest. Eg:
Iran.

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In spite of this, the most famous and most highly regarded of American papers are still
metropolitan. We can mention The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles
Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today…
An enormous amount of magazines are published in the USA. There is a very well-
established distribution network, a very far-reaching system that makes use of subscription,
news stands, supermarkets, bookshops… Magazines cater for every hobby, taste or interest.
Among them, we can mention Reader’s Digest, National Geographic, Time, Business
Week, Fortune… and women’s magazines, such as Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Elle. These
women’s magazines have all become big business, with editions in different countries and
languages, trying to adapt to the readers. Among these different editions, we can mention that
Cosmopolitan prints an edition in Spanglish, addressed to South American immigrants in
South Florida, with the same contents and images than the American edition in English. A
new phenomenon is the apparition of men’s magazines, such as GQ, as a response to the
traditional magazines for women.
5. NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND THE PRESS

In the last years, the importance of new technologies has been undeniable, and it has
obviously affected the press. The relation between the press and these new technologies has
two sides: on the one hand, new technologies make it easier to print newspapers; not only the
printing process in easier and cheaper, but news travel faster, and newspapers do not need to
send journalists to cover them, but can use agencies’ reports. On the other hand, new
technologies have become a serious competitor to newspapers. Why buy newspapers, when
you can get as much information from Internet (or even more), together with opinion articles,
and you can even add your own opinion in chats and forums?
Newspapers were fast to perceive this problem, and they have tried to face it as best as
they can. Nowadays, all important newspapers have an electronic edition, with the same
contents than the printed version, available on the net. This is called an “e-paper” (electronic
paper), or e-edition. These are mostly free, but some newspapers are thinking about
establishing a fee to have access to these editions, so as to make for the readers they are
loosing.
By the side of these e-editions, we also find “i-papers” (internet papers). These are not
printed on paper, and only appear on the net.

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But, in spite of this, we have to say that most readers do still prefer paper editions. They
may use the net to read a particular piece of news, or to follow a particular story, either in
different papers, or in the same one through time. But, the act of holding and reading a “real”
newspaper has not lose its appeal and charm for most readers; apart from that, papers are more
comfortable to read and transport than their electronic counterparts.
6. CONCLUSION
The press seems to have lost some of its importance due to the TV, radio and internet,
particularly in the eyes of teenagers. Most of them never read any newspapers at all, believing
than the any information they need will be found on the TV or internet. We must emphasize
the importance of the press not only in presenting information, but also opinion, and the
importance of getting different points of view about the same story, so as to be able to build
our own.
We should encourage them to read, and newspaper articles are very good texts to use in
class. They are short and to the point, “living” texts, which relate to real life. Working with
them gives students the feeling that the language is really useful. Moreover, they get to learn
about the English-speaking society, which is one of the aims of this stage.
From the point of view of the teacher, internet editions are a wonderful source of texts.
They make available all the important newspapers in the world, so that we can select the most
suitable texts for our students. Moreover, we can use a word-processor to modify the original
article, if needed.

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7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Duff and Schindler (1984), Language and Style in the Press, Collins.
William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, (2000, fourth edition) The Elements of Style , Allyn
& Bacon
Cappon, (2000, 3rd edition), The Associated Press Guide for News Writing, Arco Pub
Kovach and Rosenstiel (2001), The Elements of Journalism, Three Rivers Press
Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press.
London: Routledge.
http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html
http://www.mediachannel.org/
http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/front.shtml#print
Media ownership in the UK
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html


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TEMA 67.

LOS MEDIOS DE COMUNICACIÓN EN LENGUA

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 2

1. THE JOURNALISTIC STYLE

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 3

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 4

- Why did it happen?

ii. Feature article

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 5

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 6

ii. Letters to the director

c. Language and style

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 7

2. THE ROLE OF THE PRESS

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 8

3. THE PRESS IN BRITAIN

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 9

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 10

f. The Press Council

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 11

4. THE PRESS IN USA

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 12

5. NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND THE PRESS

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 13

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 14

Instituto de Ciencias del Hombre XXI 15

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