Stampa britannica

Unit 2 Newspapers

Lesson 2: The British press

More newspapers are sold in Britain than in any other European country. 66% of the British public read one of the eleven daily newspaper that can be divided into two chief categories: broadsheets, such as The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph, and tabloids, such as The Daily Mail and The Sun. The tabloids are the biggest sellers by far. They are part of what is commonly known as the popular press which is aimed at lower social groupings.

Among the features of tabloid papers are their lively layout, their use of big headlines in bold, of colour, of large, dramatic pictures accompanying short articles. They usually focus on human interest stories, on gossip, on sport and often offer gimmicks and special offers such as games and free tickets.

Broadsheet newspapers are usually referred to as quality press. They aim at a higher social grouping. They use colour very sparingly, their pages are usually densely packed with long news reports, their focus is often on political issues and on international news. The broadsheet is usually serious and careful to be seen to present as full a picture as possible of the news in a series of reports about recent occurrences judged to be “newsworthy” and of interest to the paper’s readership. The tabloid does not worry about presenting (or seeming to present) the news in an objective way, rather it appears directly to the readers’ emotions and instincts.

For tabloids, emotion about an event takes precedence over the event itself. For broadsheets, the event takes precedence over emotion. In this respect, tabloids may be seen as displaying a preference for spoken melodrama (sensationalism and excessive emotion), whereas broadsheets are more rooted in written epic (the narrative of events that are important to a nation). Sometimes this leads tabloids to taking rather extreme positions which are often criticized.

The following front page headlines, each printed on the same day during the NATO war in Kosovo, exemplify the different approaches of the two types of newspapers.

• The Times (broadsheet): NATO SPLIT OVER AIR CAMPAIGN
• The Sun (tabloid): CLOBBA SLOBBA

The first headline encapsulates a political issue in a neutral way pointing to the fact that NATO is divided over whether or not to launch an air attack; the second is an emotive comment, an exhortation to attack, to “clobber” (hit) Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, and hence Serbia. As can be seen in this example, tabloids make little distinction between news and comment (views, remarks, observations, critical stances representing the ideas of the writer or editor, evaluations) whereas broadsheets keep the two more carefully separated.

The tabloid pages are considerably smaller than the broadsheets, but tabloid headlines, despite the smaller page, use larger fonts. They are usually very short and direct, such as “ROUTED” (The Sun, April 3, 2003), “HELL ON EARTH” (The Sun, March 31, 2003). They often read as a spontaneous comment or reaction representing a moral or emotional stance and they often appear to have more in common with spoken rather than formal written English. They make no secret of their desire to manipulate public opinion. An example of this is to be seen in the headline written in The Sun of August 29, 1996, against Prince Charles on the day in which he and Princess Diana got divorced: “BYE BYE BIG EARS”. Such headlines are usually juxtaposed with a large, dominant picture.

Broadsheet headlines have a smaller typeface and stretch right across the front page. They tend to offer a summary of the story carried beneath. The main image is not necessarily directly connected with the principal headline. The longer headline allows for the use of a fully formed sentence often with two clauses, as follows: “SADDAM’S PALACE DESTROYED BY CRUISE MISSILE AS US MOUNTS NEW ATTACK”. There is a tendency to elide the full range of participants to a process. Often the function words such as definite articles, pronouns and auxiliary verbs are left out. With all these elements added in, this headline would read: “Saddam’s palace has been destroyed by a Cruise missile as the US mounts a new attack”.

Cultural note: tabloide

Tabloidese, devised to accommodate the largest type to the smallest page, is essentially a made-up language, a kind of primitive Esperanto where nouns, verbs and adjectives are interchangeable. So long as readers are well-versed in this Esperanto, it is a useful - indeed an essential - headline aid.

Tabloid vs. broadsheet - or popular vs. quality?

Tabloid newspapers have often been accused of being sensational - a term of abuse when aimed at the press. But the comments below, published in the early 1950s on the front page of the Daily Mirror by the editor, Sylvester Bolam (Editor 1948-1953) suggest some of the more positive aspects of sensationalism.

“The Mirror is a sensational newspaper. We make no apology for that. We believe in the sensational presentation of news and views, especially important news and views, as a necessary and valuable public service in these days of mass readership and democratic responsibility. We shall go on being sensational to the best of our ability... Sensationalism does not mean distorting the truth. It means the vivid and dramatic presentation of events so as to give them a forceful impact on the mind of the reader. It means big headlines, vigorous writing, simplification into familiar, everyday language, and the wide use of illustration by cartoon and photograph... As in larger, so in smaller and more personal affairs, the Mirror and its millions of readers prefer the vivid to the dull and the vigorous to the timid. No doubt we make mistakes, but we are at least alive.”

Vocabulary note

Press The term, followed by a singular verb, is a collective noun used to refer to newspapers or journalists collectively, as a category.

News The term is an uncountable noun which is always followed by a singular verb: The news was very exciting last night. They announced that the war in Iraq was over. Many compound nouns can be formed with the word news: newsagency, newsletter, news conference, newsagent’s, newsworthy...

Exercise 1:

Tick the term or statement that is incorrect according to the text

• For news to be news, it must be...
  • Fresh
  • Of international interest
  • Of interest to the reader
• Tabloid newspapers frequently...
  • Are colourful
  • Offer full international news analysis
  • Present the news in a dramatic way
• Broadsheet newspapers...
  • Have a higher readership than ta