British News Discourse

The discourse structure of the news story

“Journalists do not write articles, they write stories – with structure, order, viewpoint and values”

Bell 1998

You need to learn how to notice the choices made and the indications they give of the

values underlying those choices

• The discourse structure of news stories

• News reports in newspapers

• Broadcast news

First a recap of what you learnt last year about news reports in broadsheets and tabloids

structure

• First we will look at the structure of written news reports and revise what we learnt last year and then we will look at

• broadcast news structure

newspapers

• You need to be able to quickly identify the various parts of a news article in order to be able to see the choices made and to be able to place it in context and understand some of the underlying values

News reports• Reports have a recognisable structure

• Attribution (source, place, time, byline or who is taking responsability)

• Abstract (headline, lead)

• Story (Episodes, events(1 – n)

• Events (actors, action, setting, attribution or who is given a voice within the story, follow-up, commentary, back-ground)

Inverted pyramid

The structure of the news story

• The ‘lead’ (US) or ‘intro’ (UK)– Who?– What?– When?– Where?– Why?– How?

Found: prehistoric rodent that was as big as a bull By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Published: 16 January 2008 The fossilised skull of a giant rodent that grew to the size of a bull has been discovered in South America, where it lived about four million years ago alongside sabre-toothed cats, huge flightless "terror" birds and giant ground sloths.

Scientists have found the almost complete skull of the extinct rodent, which weighed about a ton and grew about 5ft tall and about 9ft long.[…]

News reports - revision• Structure• Attribution: source (byline/agencies), place,

time• Abstract: headline, lead(or intro)• Story: episodes (1-n), events (1-n), attributions,

actors, actions, settings (time, place),• follow-up (consequences, reactions),

commentary (context, evaluation), background (previous episodes, history)

Headlines are summaries,

• their main functions are to:

• Attract the reader’s attention to the story (or paper, if on the front page)

• Tell the reader what the story is about by: – summarising the content of the story

• indicating the evaluation of the story• indicating the register of the story• indicating the focus of the story

 

News reports: the abstract

• Headlines are powerful framing devices and prepare the reader by priming their expectations as to evaluation

• The ‘lead’ (US) or ‘intro’ (UK) tells us:

• Who?What?When?Where?Why?How?

Inverted pyramid structure

• Beginning of text Greatest amount of information (Headline and lead)

• As text progresses less really new information , more detail, background, commentary

Broadcast news

• We will now look at broadcast news to see what is typical and to try to discern the choices which are the result of values

Broadcast news

• News programme

• Opening signature visuals, theme tune and logo

• Headlines

• News items (1 - n)

• Signing off

• Closing visuals

Openings

• Before the news

• A continuity announcer will typically announce the transition from the prior programme in the schedule to the news programme

• This serves to identity the channel, the upcoming programme, the upcoming speakers, and the present time

Opening trailers

• Before the news actually starts

• Like headlines in newspapers they give us an idea of the content

• They provide focus and project us forward temporally into the programme

• They provide clues to the overall structure and give us a reason to continue viewing

Idents

• News programmes usually open with signature music, signature graphics and logo (often a spinning globe or a map) which blend channel identification with notions of both time and space.

• What are the differences between the idents of Al Jazeera, France 24, CCTV and RT?

Contextualising shots of news presenter

• E.g crane shot of studio setting with news presenter shown in long shot position (sometimes sitting sometimes standing)

• Followed by zoom in to NP now given on face to camera

• This is the cue for the presenter to greet the audience in direct address

Openings may last well over a minute

• Openings therefore amount to a complex multi-layered introduction to the structured nature of the anticipated programme placing the programme within the schedule, inserting it into the broadcast flow and into a temporal moment (9 o’clock, ten o’clock, early evening), signalling the channel and the genre, and anticipating the structure of the programme

News item

• News presentation (+ news subsidiary)

• News kernel (+news report) (+live interview with reporter/ correspondent)

• That is to say a news item consists minimally of a news presentation of a news kernel by a news presenter

News item = [news presentation (+news subsidiary)]

• It may also consist of a sequence of a news presentation of a news kernel from the studio coupled with additional optional subsidiary material in the form of a news report where

• News presentation = news kernel

• News subsidiary = news report

News subsidiary= [news report+(live 2 way interview)]

• There is a sequential constraint. A report or an interview will always be preceded by a studio presentation. This reflects the hierarchy of news discourse all voices of tv news are subordinate to its institutional voice from the news studio (deictic point zero of enunciation)

• It is possible to embed a news report within a live 2 way

transitions

• Oftne you will find phrases which project forward in the programme structure such as

• Coming up later…

• After the break…

Closings• Closing is more perfunctory than opening• Some kind of a reprise of main items

(sometimes preceded by a reprise preface our headlines tonight, our main headline tonight)

• A closing to indicate there are no further items to come (that’s all for now)

• Optional trailer of later bulletins• Leave-taking (it’s goodbye from me)• Final signature graphics, theme tune, logo and

credits