MODULE 6

Text 1. Print Media: British Newspapers

Reading newspapers is very popular in Britain. If you get on a bus or catch a train, especially during the morning and evening "rush hour", you'll see a lot of people reading newspapers. There are about 135 daily papers and Sunday papers, 2000 weekly papers and about 100 papers produced by members of ethnic groups in Britain.

A lot of people buy a morning paper, an evening paper and a couple of Sunday papers. On an average day two out of three people over the age of 15 read national morning paper, about three out of four read a Sunday paper. So it's not surprising to learn that national newspapers have a circulation of 15.8 million copies on weekdays and 19 million on Sundays.

Papers are usually divided into "quality" papers which are serious with long, informative articles and "popular" which have smaller size. They are less serious and contain more human interest stories than news. More daily newspapers, national and regional, are sold in Great Britain than in most other developed countries.

People read newspapers for lots of different reasons: to obtain information (facts), to hear interpretation of events (opinions) and for entertainment. The different sections and columns contained within a typical present-day British newspaper include:

• Editorials

• World news

• State news

• Local news (usually includes weather)

• Lifestyle

• Feature articles (non-news e.g.)

• Economy and business issues

• Entertainment (e.g. TV, movie, book or play reviews)

• Travel

• Fashion

• Information

• Sports

• Advice columns

• Comics and puzzles

• Classified advertisements

• Small advertisements for things for sale or rent, job openings, garage sale announcements, etc.

• Display advertisements are usually also found throughout the paper.  It is these which generate most of the money that keeps newspapers running.

• Birth, Marriage and Death Announcements

Most reporters would tell you that they try to be impartial and present both sides of an issue with a balanced account of what happened when they write their articles.  More often than not it is not true. That’s why the same event is reported in different publications differently with a specific  bias or “slant”, the reasons for the slant being mostly different intended audiences, differences in ownership / management, etc. Put most simply, ‘who pays the piper calls the tune.’ The more so that the ownership of the national London and regional daily newspapers is concentrated in the hands of five large press publishing groups.

Text 2. NEWSPAPERS IN THE UK

Reading newspaper is a common thing for British people. There are different kinds of newspapers in the uk.

Popular papers (also known as tabloids or mass-market newspapers) mainly cover UK gossip, entertainment and sports news. They are written using casual English (the use of slang can make them difficult to understand for foreigners). Articles are often short and illustrated with pictures. Quality papers (also known as broadsheets, because the pages used to be larger) mainly cover serious news stories, both in the UK and internationally. They are written using formal English. Articles may be longer, but the range of vocabulary is greater.

Weekend newspapers appearing on Saturday or Sunday often contain many more sections than daily newspapers, including free magazines or television guides. For example, the Saturday edition of The Financial Times has more general articles than the weekday editions, which are mainly about business issues.

Local newspapers may contain useful information and advertisements, and are usually written in a simple style.

Some of the most popular British newspapers are:

• The Daily Telegraph (daily quality newspaper): http://www.telegraph.co.uk

• The Guardian (daily quality newspaper): http://www.guardian.co.uk

• The Financial Times (daily quality newspaper): http://www.ft.com

• The Times (daily quality newspaper): http://www.timesonline.co.uk

• The Independent (daily quality newspaper): http://www.independent.co.uk

• The Daily Mail (daily mid-market newspaper): http://www.dailymail.co.uk

• The Sun (daily popular newspaper): http://www.thesun.co.uk

• The Daily Mirror (daily popular newspaper): http://www.mirror.co.uk

• The Evening Standard (the main evening newspaper in London): www.thisislondon.co.uk

• Metro (a free newspaper which is distributed in the mornings in London and other urban areas in the UK whose copies are usually placed near stations): http://www.metro.co.uk.

There are also two other free afternoon newspapers: The London Paper (thisislondon.co.uk) and The London Lite.

Some British newspapers also produce weekly international editions which you can buy

outside the UK:

• The Weekly Telegraph

• The Guardian Weekly

• The Economist: a weekly magazine covering general international current affairs as well as business and finance stories.( Magazine's website: http://www.economist.com)

The largest newspapers in the UK by circulation are: The Sun - 4 million; Daily Mail - 1,7 million; Daily Star - 1,5 million; Today - 600.000; Daily Telegraph - 1 million; Daily Mirror - 2,5 million; Daily Express- 1,4 million; The Independent - 200.000. All of them have an online version, where you can print off articles.

Reading a daily or weekly newspaper is a good way to study British English and to learn about the UK's culture. Besides, BBC World Service (bbc.co.uk/worldservice/) produces free English lessons based on current news events at:

bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish.

Text 3. Understanding newspaper headlines

(1) Intoduction. The newspaper writing style tends to have three levels: headlines, leading phrases, and article content with clear-cut differences between them in terms of grammar forms, vocabulary, and style. Here is a short guideline to the main differences:

• Headline: incomplete sentences; Simple tenses instead of Continuous or Perfect; no use of function words; auxiliary verbs dropped in Passive form; articles dropped; Infinitive to Indicate Future; noun phrases and noun strings; idiomatic, flashy vocabulary.

• Leading sentence: Present Perfect tense often used to give general overview.

• Article content: proper tense usage, including a change from Present Perfect to past tenses to give detailed, specific information about what, where and when something happened.

(2) Noun phrase. Many students have difficulty in understanding the strange grammar forms used in newspaper headlines. For example, headlines often contain a noun phrase with no verb. Here are some examples of noun phrase headlines:

• Under Pressure from Boss

• Unexpected Visit

• Overwhelming Response of Voters

To understand these type of headlines it's useful to ask yourself questions such as: From what? About what? From whom, To whom? etc. By asking yourself these questions, you can begin preparing yourself for the article. Here's an example: Unexpected Visit. The questions you can ask yourself are: From whom? Why was the visit unexpected? Who was visited? etc.

(3) A string of nouns. Another common headline form is a string of three, four or more nouns together (i.e. Country Leader Question Time). These can be difficult because the words don't appear related by verbs or adjectives. Here are some more examples:

• Widow Pension Pay Committee

• Landscaping Company Disturbance Regulations

• Mustang Referral Customer Complaint

In the case of noun strings, it's helpful to try to connect the ideas by reading backwards. For example: Mustang Referral Customer Complaint. By reading backwards, you can guess that there is a complaint made by a customer about a referral program for Mustang cars. Of course, you need to use your imagine for this!

(4) Changes in the verb form. There are a number of verb changes proper to headlines. The most common are:

• Simple tenses used instead of continuous or perfect forms. For example:

Forgotten Brother Appears = A forgotten brother has appeared (after a long period of time).

Professors Protest Pay Cuts = Professors are protesting pay cuts (at the university).

• The infinitive form refers to the future. For example:

Mayor to Open Shopping Mall = The mayor is going to open a new shopping mall.

James Wood to Visit Portland = (Famous actor) James Wood is going to visit Portland soon.

• Auxiliary verbs are dropped in the passive form. For example:

Man Killed in Accident = A Man has been killed in an accident.

Tommy the Dog Named Hero = Tommy the Dog has been named a hero (by the mayor).

Civilians Killed as U.S. Troops Fire on Afghan Bus = Civilians were killed as the U.S.