прагматика и медиа дискурс / Teun A van Dijk - News Analysis

CSC Change of style and content

Let us briefly comment upon some more interesting changes. A slight semantic difference is the result of the International Herald Tribune's use of "rightist" instead of Reuter's "right-wing," which seems more neutral. On the other hand, the Statesman of India deletes this adjective altogether, which seems more than just an innocent deletion. The change from "campaign," predicated of the Israeli army, into "assault," introduces a more militaristic or agressive connotation. A classic change can be found in the Guardian, which uses "Palestinian fighters" instead of "guerillas."

Another interesting omission is the deletion in the Herald Tribune of the

the agency reports, some French correspondents clearly write in a more personal, impressionistic and even literary style. The report of a special envoy of Le Figaro (September 15) brings news about the bomb explosion but not yet about Gemayel's death. Speculating about the contents of the survival nimors, this report mentions that Gemayel was brought to the hospital "where doctors proceeded to the first examination", a "fact" that could hardly have been confirmed by the hospital. The same report formulates rather firm expectations about the consequences of the attack and predicts that Lebanon is heading for civil war again. A background itero specifies details about the previous attacks against Gemayel but does not mention its source. Comparison with the same information in Libération, however, shows that this article is copied from the AFP wire. In general, AFP appears to give somewhat more information than the other agencies about the scene of the explosion, as well as an impression of the direct aftermath of the attack and the reactions of the population.

has a series of articles (datelined September 16, but published the previous day in Paris) about the events in Lebanon, both from its own correspondents and from staff writers. The international reactions are extensively covered and have high prominence in the main itero. The story about the events themselves are a typical personal impression account: " catastrophe'. Around the room ten tense faces, ten anxious and tired looks, acquiescent without saying a word. . . ." This literaiy style is used to describe in detail the emotional reactions of the participants, but at the same time it is a rhetorical device, namely the direct eyewitness description of events and their consequences, which is one of the well-known rhetorical strategies of journalistic truthfulness. Hence Le Monde shows typical differences with standard agency-based news reports: more evaluation, more political background analysis, more details about the scene of events, and more personal accounts of the situation. The information about the main event is the same, but it is presented less prominently and sometimes hidden in longer reports about the situation.

The report of Chinese Renmin Ribads correspondent in Damascus focuses on the main events, does not give much background, but is also more adamant in its assumptions: "There were assumptions that President Bechir Gemayel would be killed before his inauguration", information we do not find in other news reports. Similarly, Japanese

correspondent in Cairo mentions that Gemayel was expected to reestablish order in Lebanon "from a pro-American and pro-Israeli point of view", a brief political evaluation that is at most implica in other reports. This correspondent, too, pays attention to the reactions in Beirut and also expects a new civil war.

From this informal analysis of correspondent reports we may conclude first that in general there are few differences between agency materials and

individual correspondent reports, especially in the U. S. newspaper articles based on them. French eorrespondents are somewhat more personal and literary but at the same time provide more political analysis. Correspondents may add small items of evaluation not usually found in agency dispatches, which try to remain as neutral as possible. Finally, it should be added that even when newspapers have their own correspondents in Beirut, such as the Tintes and the Guardian, the first news may well be borrowed from the agencies. This means that the first definition of the situation is given by the spot news of the international agencies, after which the newspapers' own correspondents are left with the task of providing further background or some more personal impressions or evaluations.

Some quantitative Data About Sources

We have also computed the overall frequencies of agency and other sources for the news about the assassination and the invasion. These figures, however, are based on actual mentions of wire services, and not on actual uses, which are very difficult to establish for large amounts of anides. We may assume, however, that actual uses are more frequent than explicit references to the agencies. Table 2.27 shows that the Big Four agencies are mentioned most often as sources, possibly in combination. TASS and DPA are used only a few times, mainly in Eastern Europe and Western Germany, respectively. Third World newspapers mention the agency wires much more often. AP and AFP especially appear to be used in the Third World, whereas the use of UPI and Reuter is about the same in the First and Third World.

These differences are even more dramatic when we compare the use of agencies as a single source (Table 2.28). Newspapers in the Third World especially appear to be very dependent on AFP and AP. Of 173 single agency uses that are explicitly acknowledged, 126 are from the Third World.

Table 2.29 explains these differences in terms of previously suggested theories: The First World newspapers make much more use of correspondents and own staff writers: Of the 144 correspondent reports, only 11

TABLE 2.27

Frequencies of International News Agency Mentions as Sources for News Reports

appear in the Third World press. Third World news also makes use of more other agencies, mostly regional ones.

Although hardly unexpected, the results from this brief analysis of news sources are perhaps the most dramatic and significant of this case study. Where on most other dimensions of analysis, differences between F:

Third World coverage is nonexistent or marginal, these figures indicate real differences. The explanation for this difference is obvious and in line with those made in the recent discussions about the imbalance in the international news flow in the world: The Third World press is nearly wholly dependent on the transnational agencies for its international news. Unlike the Western press, it has few correspondents of its own, even in such important news spots as the Middle East. Similarly, due to a lack of sufficient staff writers or specialized editors, they are seldom in a position to provide their own background stories for the events in Lebanon. That their coverage is structurally similar to that in the Western press can be explained by the fact that the Western press also often makes use of the agencies for their first spot news items and by the fact that agency reports appear to be copied rather faithfully.

In other words, if the news in the Third World press is similar to Western news, it is mainly because is is Western news. We now also have an explana-

TABLE 2.29

Frequencies of Other Sources Mentioned

The use of other sources as single source is indicated between parentheses. This is especially the case for Eastern European (First World) newspapers' data for "other agency" use: here the national news agencies are mostly used as source by the newspapers.

tion for the earlier finding that on the whole the Third World press seems to have fewer background topics and fewer background articles: What they have derives from the agencies, and what they do not have appears in editorial and correspondent's reports in the Western press. Hence, on the one hand, there is similarity and homogeneity, but on the other hand, the final news product in the Third World press is also politically poorer, while lacking important background information.

OPINIONS IN EDITORIALS AND NEWS ARTICLES

The Editorials

One of the central propositions in the news ideology of many journalists, especially in Western countries, is that fact and opinion should not be mixed. This normative thesis is based on the misguided assumption that the description of news events can be value-tree. iinplicit opinions can be expressed or signaled even in the most factual news report. The very selection of this news event instead of another, the focus on special dimensions of the event, the prominence accorded to certain topics aboye others, the variations in relevance structures, the point of view in descriptions, style and rhetoric, and many other properties of news text necessarily signa' the context of production and the beliefs and opinions of the journalist

The portrayal of Gemayel and of the political situation in Lebanon, for example, cannot possibly be value-free. Even a neutral description of Gemayel might imply a lack of critical evaluation towards his actions in the civil war, and this evaluative distance itself implies an evaluation.

While this analysis is both theoretically and empirically correct, it does not quite render the intuitions of journalists and readers about the distinction between fact and opinion in discourse or between discourse genres in which such different positions are typically realized. Thus, it still makes sense to distinguish between proper news articles, background features, and editorials in the press. From a practical point of view, this means that in proper news articles no explicit opinions of the individual journalist are dominant. A background feature gives an analysis of the context or historical background of a news event, and this analysis may be given explicitly from a specific point of view and involve explicit opinions of the writer. In an editorial, finally, opinions are both explicit and dominant, and formulated from the point of view of the newspaper or its editor. Moreover, these opinions are usually defended by a series of arguments, which means that editorials have an argumentative structure. This argumentation is not only defensive but also persuasive: The editorial is intended to contribute to the opinion formation of the reader about a current news event. Of course,

more subtle discourse analytical methods, involving the description of argumentative structures, the explicitation of presupposed (tacit) assumptions, norms and values, and an analysis of style and rhetorical devices.

The results of this analysis show that overall the differences between First World and Third World newspapers are not dramatic. The evaluation of Gemayel is slightly more positive in the First World newspapers, which include both liberal and conservative newspapers (no socialist or communist newspapers are induded in this selection). On the other hand, a few Third World newspapers appear to contribute to a somewhat more positive evaluation of the role of the Falange, especially of course the Falangist newspaper Le Réveil in Lebanon itself, as well as the conservative Chilean newspaper El Mercurio. The Western press does not formulate many opinions about the Falangists.

More striking are the differences between the opinions about Israel, a country that is expectedly evaluated more negatively in the Third World press, especially in pro-Arabic or communist newspapers. Whereas in the Third World the opinions about the United States are mixed, the First World press is on the whole more or less neutral or positive about the role of the United States (especially about Reagan's Mid East plan). The role of the PLO and Syria is negatively valued by the same Western papers and tends to be more positive in the Third World press. These results are not surprising and confirm the international political attitudes in general, and those about the Middle East conflict in particular. The only surprising element is the opinion in the Third World, and especially in the Arab countries, about Gemayel and his political position. Logic would predict that those who are anti-Israel are also anti-Gemayel and anti-Falange. This is, however, not necessarily the case, which shows how complex political attitudes and positions may be in the Middle East: Political realism, and the hope that even the controversial Gemayel might contribute to a peaceful solution of the Lebanese conflict are more relevant at this moment than the Moslem opposition against the Christian Maronites and their traditional allies.

In line with their general attitude towards Israel, some Third World newspapers also tend to attribute the guilt for the assassination to this ally of Gemayel, usually with the argument that Gemayel had become an insecure factor for Israel after his election and his promise to expel all foreign troops from his country. Conversely, some Western newspapers blame Syria, the other major participant in the Lebanese conflict; whereas Excelsior attributes the assassination to "enemies of the West'', simply because Gemayel was a friend of the West. This attribution is consistent with political logic, but not necessarily true, given the situation in Lebanon. (Gemayel had many enemies who were also friendly towards the West.) Finally, some newspapers are more cautious and seek an explanation for the assassination