The peculiarities of news reports in English mass media texts
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rly English newspaper was principally a vehicle of information. Commentary found its way into the newspapers later. But as far back as the middle of the 18th century the British newspaper was very much like what it is today, carrying foreign and domestic news, advertisements, announcements and articles containing comments.all the printed materials found in newspapers comes under newspaper style. Only materials which perform the function of informing the reader and providing him with an evaluation of information published can be regarded as belonging to newspaper style. English newspaper style can be defined as a system of interrelated lexical, phrase logical and grammatical means which is perceived by the community as a separate linguistic unity that serves the purpose of informing and instructing the reader. Information in the English newspaper is conveyed through the medium of:
- brief news items;
- press reports;
- articles purely informational in character;
- advertisements and announcements.
- Official documents
The newspaper also seeks to influence public opinion on political and other matters. Elements of appraisal may be observed in the very selection and way of presentation of news, in the use of specific vocabulary, casting some doubt on the facts recorded, and syntactical constructions indicating a lack of assurance of the reporter or his desire to avoid responsibility. The principle vehicle of interpretation and appraisal is the newspaper article and the editorial in particular. Editorial is a leading article which is characterized by a subjective handling of facts. This purpose defines the choice of language elements which are mostly emotionally colored. Newspaper style has its specific vocabulary features and is characterized by an extensive use of:
- special political and economic terms (president, election);
- non-term political vocabulary (nation, crisis, agreement, member);
- newspaper cliches (pressing problem, danger of war, pillars of society);
- abbreviations (NATO, EEC)
- neologisms.
The Headline
The headline is the title given to a news item or a newspaper magazine article. The main function of the headline is to inform the reader briefly of what the news that follows is about. Sometimes headlines contain elements of appraisal, i.e., they show the reporters or the papers attitude to the facts reported. English headlines are short and catching, they compact the gist of news stories into a few eye-snaring words. A skillfully turned out headline tells a story, or enough of it, to arouse or satisfy the reader`s curiosity; (George C. Bastian, 1956. Editing the Day`s News. N.Y.) In most of the English and American newspapers and magazines sensational headlines are quite common. The practice of headline writing is different with different editions. In many newspapers, there is, as a rule, one headline to a news item, whereas some others more often than not carry a news item or an article with two or three headlines.headline in British and American newspapers and magazines is an important vehicle of both information and appraisal, and editors give it special attention, admitting that few read beyond the headline, or at best the lead. To lure the reader into going through the whole of the item or at least a greater part of it takes a lot of skill and ingenuity on the part of the headline writer.
For examples: BUSH IS `JUST AS BAD AS SADDAM While President George W. Bush drew applause in America for his plans to destroy the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, in Baghdad yesterday there were only jeers and scoffs.
"Bah. These are just gestures that mean nothing," said Zaineb Hamid, a 30-year-old typist.
Lead
The most important structural element of a story is the lead (or "intro" in the UK) - the story is first, or leading, sentence. (Some American English writers use the spelling lead, from the archaic English, to avoid confusion with the printing press type formerly made from the metal lead or the related typographical term leading.states that "an effective lead is a brief, sharp statement of the storys essential facts. The lead is usually the first sentence, or in some cases the first two sentences, and is ideally 20-25 words in length. The top-loading principle (putting the most important information first - see inverted pyramid section below) applies especially to leads, but the unread ability of long sentences constrains the leads size. This makes writing a lead an optimization problem, in which the goal is to articulate the most encompassing and interesting statement that a writer can make in one sentence, given the material with which he or she has to work. While a rule of thumb says the lead should answer most or all of the five Ws, few leads can fit all of these."bury the lead" in news style refers to beginning a description with details of secondary importance to the readers, forcing them to read more deeply into an article than they should have to in order to discover the essential point(s).leads are sometimes categorized into hard leads and soft leads. A hard lead aims to provide a comprehensive thesis which tells the reader what the article will cover. A soft lead introduces the topic in a more creative, attention-seeking fashion, and is usually followed by a nut graph (a brief summary of facts).critics often note that the lead can be the most polarizing subject in the article. Often critics accuse the article of bias based on an editors choice of headline and or lead. For example: Lead-and-Summary Design Humans will be going to the moon again. The NASA announcement came as the agency requested ten trillion dollars of appropriations for the project. ... For example: Soft-Lead Design NASA is proposing another space project. The agencys budget request, announced today, included a plan to send another person to the moon. This time the agency hopes to establish a long-term facility as a jumping-off point for other space adventures. The budget requests approximately ten trillion dollars for the project. .
"Add the product of another author" Bill Parks writing "Basic news The Lead".
The lead is usually the toughest part of writing a story. The lead is the first word, sentence or paragraph of the story. Sometimes it can be two or three paragraphs. Whatever its length, the lead has several important jobs to do. First, it must interest the reader in the rest of the story. Imagine the reader as impatient, with lots of other things he or she could be doing instead of reading your story.the reader saying, "Get to the POINT! Dont waste my time! Tell me the STORY!" If your reader were stranded on a desert island with nothing to read but your story, you could probably get away with a vague, rambling lead. But todays reader has a BART train to catch, the kids are fighting again and the TV never stops blaring. Your story has tough competition. Surveys have shown that most people say they get their news from TV, but many then turn to newspapers for the details behind the headlines. Your job is to write a short, punchy, informative lead to attract readers who have grown accustomed to TVs "sound bite" journalism. But then you must supply the details, the insights, the context that TV doesnt have time for. What are the rules for a good lead? Keep it short. News writing is always tight, but the lead calls for special care. Condense your story into one sentence, then one phrase, then one word. Make sure that word is near the beginning of the lead. As a general rule, no lead sentence should be longer than 10 words.
Get to the point. What is the story about?the reader in the lead. Dont say, "The city council met last night." Tell the reader what the city council did. "Business taxes were raised a whopping 30 percent on a 6-1 vote of the city council last night." Whats the story about? Taxes. So get taxes in the lead.
Focus on the action. Use the "active voice." Instead of saying something happened, say who did what to who. Use the action word. If nobody did anything, it may not be a news story.
Hook the reader. Put the most important, the most interesting, the most exciting thing in the lead. A novel may take 100 pages to lead up to the climax of the story; a news story puts the climax first and then explains what led up to it. These rules are sometimes thrown out for feature leads, or "anecdotal leads" that start with a little story that sets the scene for the point you are trying to make. But the lean, punchy news lead will work best on most stories.
How to write a news lead?
. Condense story into one or two words. Put those words as close to the beginning of the first sentence as possible without destroying the flow of the lead sentence.
. Keep leads short - 20 to 30 words for the first sentence. Or fewer. 3. The news lead should tell the reader what the story is about and be interesting enough to draw the reader into the rest of the story. Remember that the readers wont know what the story is about until you tell them. 4. Find the action in the story. Put the action in the lead. 5. Always double-check names and numbers. Check spelling, style and grammar. Put everything in order. 6. Attribute opinions. Stick with the facts. 7. Details, description. Report first, then write. Learn all, tell 10 percent. 8. Decide which of the news values best applies to the lead of the story. Write a lead that emphasizes that news value. 9. Write in the active voice. 10. Dont lead with a name, time or place unless that is t