Read All About It!
Looking at newspapers

SECTION 3

News and Ideas

You might think that the purpose of news stories is to tell us what has happened - to report the facts, but we have already seen that the way events are reported can make us feel certain things about the people involved. In other words the news is not reported neutrally. And anyway, who decides what should be reported?

Let's consider an example: say a newspaper's owner does not like comprehensive schools or their pupils and teachers. What if that owner believes that those schools are staffed by bad, lazy teachers, and that they are attended by bored and moronic pupils? His own children probably went to expensive private schools. If the editor of the paper simply expressed these beliefs in the comment section of the paper most readers would probably reject the beliefs as being too crude and extreme, but these ideas could be cunningly suggested to the reader in two other ways:

Firstly, the paper could report any stories it could find about disorder in comprehensive schools. Secondly, it could use emotive language about the pupils and teachers .

Look again at The Star report of the school 'riot' in Bideford. (Incidentally, why have I put inverted commas round 'riot'?)

Bored pupils riot as staff walk out

A MOB of 300 youngsters ran riot through their school yesterday - because they were bored.
   It happened when teachers at the 100-staff comprehensive refused to do dinner duties and walked out in a union dispute.
   Only the headmaster and two teachers were on duty, and they wre powerless to act.
   People living nearby watched, terrified, as gangs of 15 and 16 year olds rampaged through the 1000-pupil school at Bideford, Devon, chanting "We want a riot" as they smashed windows.
   Police who rushed to the giant complex in seven cars calmed the frantic pupils.

Hammers

As the afternoon lessons ended the youngsters said they were protesting about being confined to one playground.
   "We were bored and had nothing to do," they said. "We will continue our action until the teachers dispute is over.
   "We brought screwdrivers and hammers to school and stole knives from the canteen."

(The Star)

Discussion Points

The paper has not directly condemned pupils and teachers, but if its readers are already slightly biased towards comprehensives then their prejudices will have been confirmed or reinforced .

Below I have re-written The Star report in as neutral a way as I can manage. Would you agree that this version - Disturbance in Devon School - does not try to praise or blame anyone?

Disturbance in Devon School

A DISTURBANCE involving as many 300 pupils occurred yesterday in a school in Bideford, Devon.
   Teaching Staff were taking part in a National Union of Teachers pay dispute and were unwilling to do unpaid supervision. The incident took place at lunchtime when, as a result of the dispute, only the headmaster and two other staff were on duty.
   Some local residents were alerted by noise coming from the usually quiet school. They contacted the police who arrived quickly and soon calmed the situation, but not before at least two of the school's windows had been broken by pupils.

Report called for

   Afterwards, the headmaster, Mr. John Dare, said that the real trouble had been caused by only a dozen pupils, and that those found to blame would be "dealt with severely".
   Devon's Director of Education, Mr Joslyn Owen, has called for a full report on the disturbance.
   Pupils claimed that the trouble had been triggered by frustration at being confined only to one recreation area in a school that is divided into two complexes. The disturbance hence seems to have stemmed from the anger and boredom of children excluded from one part of the building.

 


Now turn back to the reports of the Bideford school 'riot' near the front of this booklet.

  1. Compare The Daily Telegraph report with two others (not including The Star) and consider what impression is given to the readers about the event and the people involved in it?
    How does the diction (the words chosen by the reporters) affect the way that readers would feel about comprehensive schools?
    Organize your ideas carefully and write at least 250 words.

 

Newspapers and Politics

Most newspapers support the same political party most of the time. If you read their comment pages - particularly the editorials - then you will probably see which party they support.


  1. Which political parties do the following papers traditionally support? The answer will be either Conservative or Labour.
    1. The Times
    2. The Star
    3. The Daily Mirror
    4. The Sun
    5. The Daily Mail
    6. The Daily Express

 

Discussion Points

People have all sorts of beliefs about these things, and so do newspapers.

You should have now learnt that:

Now you can do your own study of newspaper ideas

Choose any newspaper and look through it, reading reports and comment columns. Try to work out what sort of things it wants its readers to believe. Starting with the comment columns might help you.

Try to work out how something that the paper believes in is reflected in its choice of news stories and in the style of its reporting. You might like to do this study with a partner.

Now do this:


  1. Write up your findings in the form of a scrapbook that mixes cuttings from newspapers with your own comments and analysis in a mixture of notes next to the cuttings, and whole paragraphs.

 

Ideas and the Tabloid Press

Some people hate the tabloid papers (the small ones like The Sun and The Mirror) because they think that these papers encourage our lowest instincts: greed, hate, spite and so on. Every so often the tabloids are accused of having no morals at all, and being too willing to destroy celebrities' lives by publishing scandalous things about them. Certainly the tabloids seem to be obsessed with sex.

People who hate the tabloids often refer to them as the "gutter press". Why?


  1. Plan and organize a whole class debate on the following topic:
      Do the tabloids deserve to be called 'the gutter press'?
    You will need to work with other people on this task.

 

In the debate, two people should speak on each side. After they have made their prepared speeches, the chairperson then allows people to make comments from 'the floor', occasionally allowing one of the speakers to reply. Eventually the chairperson asks the speakers to make some final comments and then calls a vote to see which side has the more support.

To help you to think about your ideas read the poem called Gutter Press below. What is it about tabloid newspapers that the poet, Paul Dehn, is attacking?

Gutter Press

Paul Dehn

This newspaper unit of work was found free at www.englishresources.co.uk
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