Video task

1. Watch the Guardian commercial – Points of View on YouTube. What characteristics of the newspaper does this video emphasize?

2. Think of synonyms to the expression point of view. (go to supplement 1 section I for more in-depth information).

UNIT 3: MEDIA BUSINESS PLAYERS

Pre-reading tasks:

1. Recall the combinations with the word MEDIA that you are already familiar with.

2. Read the expressions and match them with the definition. Then use them to complete the sentences below:

media guru media correspondent media tycoon media mogul media pundit media analyst media magnate

1. the head of a media organization (3 expressions).

2. someone who reports on the media in the media.

3. someone who gives their opinion using the media.

4. an expert on the media as a business.

5. an expert on using the media.

1. Estimates by Browen Maddox, media … … … at Kleinwort Benson Securities, are that the company will lose more than £330 million a year.

2. But it is not the economists and the media … … … who matter. The people who have been driven to fury by the finance minister are those who have lost their livelihoods.

3. … another satellite network, Sky Television, owned by the media … … Mr. Rupert Murdoch.

4. The Palace had claimed that Fergie had hired top media … … … Sir Tim Bell to handle publicity on her behalf.

5. For the past three years he had been Chairman of Thames Television and had been due to retire shortly because of his ill-health. Our media … … …, Torin Douglas, looks back at his career.

TEXT 3: NO REASON TO BE AFRAID OF RUPERT MURDOCH

By Alastair Campbell, a spokesman and adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1994 to 2003, the author of “The Blair Years.” This comment appeared in The New York Times.

It has been Rupert Murdoch’s good fortune and also his misfortune to have been demonized as the great media bogeyman of our times.

It has been his fortune because it gives him a profile and an edge that can leave some scared by his business acumen, his will to win and what many perceive as his thirst for power. It has also been Murdoch’s misfortune because it means the world’s understanding of him is perhaps not as rounded as it should be, nor his success as heralded as it might be.

It was therefore interesting to be in New York last week when Murdoch’s stalking of Dow Jones & Company and The Wall Street Journal finally succeeded. The howls of angst and anguish and the dire warnings about what he might now do to the newspaper and its standards were deeply familiar to someone like me, who was a London journalist in the 1980s as Murdoch established himself as a dominant British media player.

Back then, Murdoch’s rise to power involved at times bloody battles with print unions and their supporters as he sought to take commercial advantage of then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s desire to break the grip of organized labor.

By comparison, more recent takeovers and acquisitions have been relatively painless. He stalks, he pounces, he defies the howls of anguish, shoulders get shrugged as another title goes to the Murdoch empire, then the world moves on.

That standards in British newspapers have fallen in recent years is in my view beyond dispute, and in that Murdoch has been so dominant in the marketplace, clearly he has to be somewhere in the mix when it comes to handing out the blame. But to pretend, as some are trying to do, that he is somehow single-handedly responsible for all that is bad in the news media is not just intellectually lazy — it also misses the point.

The point is the pace of change. When I started out in newspapers 28 years ago, “the media” for most people meant a newspaper your family read daily and the television news for a few minutes. Today, the scope and scale of the news media are unrecognizable by comparison.

The advent of 24/7 news has arguably been the single biggest factor in altering the nature and tone of newspapers. With television and radio becoming the most immediate purveyors of information, newspapers have changed. Many have become players as well as spectators in the political debate, something that suits the style of Murdoch, with his clear and conservative worldview.

In Britain, much is made of the political influence of Murdoch’s biggest daily tabloid, The Sun, which switched from Tory to Labour in 1997 and is therefore thought to have helped Tony Blair become prime minister. In my view, The Sun was in part led to that decision by Murdoch, who saw in Blair a genuinely modernizing figure serious about moving Labour closer to the political center.

But more important was that Sun readers were moving in the same direction, liking what they saw and heard of Blair. Would Blair have lost the election if The Sun had stayed with the Tories? I don’t think so. Would The Sun have lost readers if it had stayed with the Tories? Probably not. Would it have lost credibility? Yes.

As to the question of his interference in matters of editorial content, we are kidding ourselves if we pretend that the personalities who own newspapers do not have an influence on editorial stance and posture. Murdoch does not really need to interfere directly. His editors know exactly what he thinks and he is rarely far from their thoughts.

Based on my experience with Murdoch, he is businessman first, journalist second and power player third, though admittedly they all mix in together.

But it is worth pointing out that my only direct experience as a staff journalist working for him was as a political columnist and assistant editor on a newspaper (now defunct) that was avowedly left of center, and in which if there was Murdoch interference I never detected it. I also worked for Robert Maxwell. Now there was an interfering proprietor.

When people look at the Murdoch-owned Times of London, now tabloid in format, and say it is not what it was, that is true. But nor is the world it reports upon, and nor is the business world in which it operates. And love him or hate him, consider his influence to be benign or malignant, at virtually every step of change, Murdoch has been ahead of the game.

When he introduced the 24-hour news channel Sky News to Britain in 1989, analysts predicted that it would not survive. Fox News got much the same reaction when it first hit screens in the United States. Now it hits an awful lot of them.

He has also been ahead of many of his rivals in his understanding of the Internet. Then throw in publishing and film and some of the deals done there and you see a mogul who can legitimately tell his senior executives, as he recently did: “You all think I’m too old. I think you’re too old.”

One of Murdoch’s former editors, Richard Stott, who also edited my book, in which Murdoch is the single most mentioned media figure, once told me that Murdoch basically despised politicians. I’m not sure that is entirely accurate.

But he certainly tracked them closely with a view to what good or bad they could do to his business interests. And doubtless some who he felt might threaten those interests may have felt the pain of the occasional editorial whack.

But in the advanced democracies, though power structures have changed, elected leaders continue to hold enormous power. Murdoch is a huge global media player. If politicians are intimidated by him, that is their problem. If they make the wrong calls out of fear of his editorial wrath, they shouldn’t have been elected in the first place.

And if journalists don’t like working for him, there are more media jobs now than at any time in the history of humankind. He was involved in making that happen, too.

COMPREHENSION AND VOCABULARY TASKS:

A. Give the word from the text for this definition:

1. а cause of fear, esp. аn imaginary оnе

2. give /have а (slight) advantage on/over smb.

3. done bу оnе person

4. the arrival of аn important event, period, invention

5. doubtful in some degree, questionable

6. a way of behaving, thinking оп а particular occasion

7. a way of thinking, esp. а publicly-stated position regarding а particular situation

8. a person of very great power, wealth and importance

B. Find in the text equivalents for these word combinations:

1. жажда власти

2. главная фигура в Британской прессе

3. тогда

4. тогдaшний министр

5. путь наверх, к власти

6. бесспорно

7. по сравнению с

8. он один в ответе за это

9. придавать большое значение ч-л.

10. переход от (консерваторов к лейбористам)

11. в частности

12. потерять доверие

13. влиять на редакционную политику

14. аналитики прогнозируют

15. запуганный к-л.

C. Speak of Rupert Murdoch making use of the following phrases:

The Murdock empire, political and business асumеn, thirst for power, а dominant British media player, dominant in the marketplace, clear and conservative worldview, bе ahead of one's rivals, his understanding of the Internet, а mogul, the single most mentioned media figure, hold enormous power, а huge global media player, have аn edge over smb.

D. Use in situations:

1. dire warnings (consequences, financial straights)

2. involve battles with print unions

3. the standards in British newspapers have fallen (dramatically)

4. editorial content

5. the advent of the 24-hour news

6. alter the nature and tone of newspapers

E. Find sentences where the following adverbs are used:

arguably, admittedly, avowedly.

What do уоu think is the role of adverbs in the sentences?

F. What major issues аге brought up in the article?

DOCUMENTARY: MEDIA REVOLUTION

1. Pre-watching tasks:

Make sure you remember the following words and their translation into Russian:

circulation, readership, tabloid, broadsheet, daily, features, classified ads, Fleet Street.

2. Watch the film and answer the following questions:

1. What is the influence of the crisis on the print media in Britain? (Give figures to prove your answers)

2. What trend in newspaper advertising does the film identify?

3. According to the film, what is the influence of Rupert Murdoch on the media world?

4. Why is The Sun doing better than its rivals?

5. What are newspapers doing to keep circulation high?

6. Why is Metro attractive to advertisers?

7. What changes and challenges in the media world does the Internet provoke?

3. Watch the film and check if the following statements are TRUE or FALSE:

1. Tabloids are losing readers whereas broadsheets retain their popularity.

2. Sunday papers have been least affected by the downturn.

3. During the downturn advertising is no longer profitable for newspapers.

4. Classified ads have never been a big source of revenue for local papers.

5. It is usual for British newspapers to share office space and backroom staff with rivals.

6. Computerization if the newspaper industry was slower in Britain than in the US, Europe or Japan because of unions.

7. The Daily Telegraph is Britain’s best selling quality paper.

8. According to E. Roussel, metropolitan and rural audiences of the Daily Telegraph want drastically different content.

9. Digital media are hugely unprofitable.

10. The US audience of The Guardian equals that in the UK.

4. Watch the part of the film starting at approximately 18:00. Complete the gaps:

Presenter: … … … … are OK if you need something to read on the train, and they have captured a rare commodity – younger readers. But they can’t … … … … ... … … … … . The future of delivering this … … … to the next generation is online.

RM: Young people want … … … . Everyone wants … … …. And thanks to the personal computer people are taking charge of their own lives. And they read what they want to read or what they are interested in. And young people today are living on their computers.

Presenter: After a … … … … most papers are now … … … the web as a platform for … … … … … .

RM: We are totally … … … about whether you read it on the television screen or you read it on your Blackberry. We are the providers of … … … and … … … . And we hope that we are the one that … … … … … … … .

AR: I think that the … … … … … … … we bought about 40 years ago may well be the last … … … … … we ever buy. If that sounds … … … – I don’t think it is – because I think as a news organization people are going to need news and I think we will provide it as well if not better than ever before. The product of print on paper – I think its days may be … … … .

5. Discussion task:

Do you agree with the editor-in-chief of The Guardian that print media have no future? Give your reasons.

PART 2: NEWS LANGUAGE

TYPES OF NEWS

1. the main international (item of) news – главная международная новость, материал информационного жанра

2. the biggest international item of news – важнейшая международная новость

3. a big item of home news – важная новость на тему внутренней жизни страны

4. the leading news – самая важная новость

5. the main news story – новость, помещенная на видном месте

6. a prominent item of news – важная новость

7. the most prominent topic on the front pages – тема, материалы на которую помещаются на самых видных местах первых полос

8. the main editorial subject/topic – главная тема передовиц/передовых статей

9. the main topic in news and opinion columns – главная тема в разделах новостей и комментариев

10. the main subject in news columns – главная тема информационных сообщений

11. the main subject in comment columns – главная тема комментариев

12. to make the main news – являться главной новостью

13. to make a big talking-point – главная тема, обсуждаемая в колонках комментариев

14. the chief talking-point in editorial columns – основная тема передовых статей

15. the biggest talking-point in the newspapers – тема/новость/событие, которые вызывают наибольшее число откликов

16. to make the main domestic news – являться самым важным сообщением на тему внутренней жизни страны

1. Study the vocabulary above and say which words in English can be translated as НОВОСТИ

2. The adjectives below can be used to describe the type of news. Split them into 2 groups according to where it happened and its significance

International, leading, world, main, front-page, European, hot, breaking, domestic, home, prominent, topical, local, vital, metropolitan

3. Determine which of the words describing news is out of place in a particular group

1. main, domestic, leading, front-page

2. international, world, European, home

3. topical, vital, burning, actual

4. front-page, prominent, breaking, metropolitan

4. Fill the gaps with the right verb from the list below:

Arouse*, carry, comment on, cover, discuss at length, dominate, get, give, provide, run.

1. The Financial Times ________ an article on the situation in Haiti. (2)

2. The world media will ________ the Sochi Olympic Games.

3. The earthquake _________ wide coverage in the press.

4. All major newspapers _________ wide coverage to the recent G 20 summit.

5. The outcome of the presidential elections in the Ukraine ___________ news and editorial columns.

6. The high- profile trial ___________the main topic for comment.

7. Only one newspaper __________ a short comment on the CEO’s resignation.

8. The recent cabinet reshuffles ____________ a great deal of comment.

9. The world media _________at length B. Obama’s one year in office and his State of the Union Address.

10. Key players in the market _________ on the latest developments in the oil market.

*Consult Section II of Supplement A on the verb AROUSE and 3 other verbs that it can be confused with.