Development of mass media

 
 

JOURNALISTIC PORTFOLIO

Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson 

The television show he is most associated with is called

Top Gear. 

   

Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born April 11, 1960) is a British motoring journalist and television presenter. He is known for his physically imposing presence, and ebulliently robust manner. The television show he is most associated with is called Top Gear.

   

This is a show which puts all cars, present, past and future through their paces. He has an image of not pulling any punches, but acknowledging up-front any and all biases the reporters have. He also “starred” in a series called (humbly) Jeremy Clarkson’s Extreme Machines where he rode all manner of machines, including a plane, a submarine and an airboat.

   

In 2002 Clarkson championed Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the BBC’s search to find the 100 Greatest Britons.

   

Clarkson, being one of the passengers on the last BA Concorde flight on October 24, 2003, played around Neil Armstrong’s famous saying: This is one small step for a man, but one huge leap backwards for mankind.

   

Recently Clarkson appeared on the British TV talkshow “Parkinson” and mentioned that he was writing a book about the ‘soul’ many machines have. Cited Concorde as his primary example; when people heard it had crashed, quite aside from the sadness they felt for the loss of human life, there was also almost a sadness for the machine. He also recently punched Piers Morgan, former editor of The Daily Mirror, a UK newspaper for printing some unflattering photographs of him. This was generally considered fairly out of character.  

   

PROBLEM-PROJECT ACTIVITY

   

Clarkson is writing a book about the ‘soul’ many machines have. Think about his example of Concorde. Do you agree that any machine has its ‘soul’?

Imagine Clarkson invites you to help to finish his book and to become a co-author.

Your task is to write one of the articles for this book. 

GLOSSARY

 

Module III. NEWS IS INFORMATION 

Unit 1. WHAT’S NEWS?

      A. Lead-in:

• What is news? Can you give your own definition of this word?

 

“When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog that is news”. Charles Anderson Dana 

9. Read the text in detail. Try to understand news values.

 

WHAT’S NEWS?

      

The answer to the question “What is news?” may seem obvious. News is what is new; it’s what’s happening. Look it up in the dictionary, and you’ll find news described as “a report of recent events or previously unknown information.” But most of the things that happen in the world every day don’ find their way into the newspaper or onto the air in a newscast.

      

So what makes a story newsworthy enough to be published or broadcast? The real answer depends on a variety of factors. Generally speaking, news is information that is of broad interest to the intended audience, so what big news in Buenos Aires is may not be news at all in Baku. Journalists decide what news to cover based on many of the following “news values”.

      

Timeliness 
 Did something happen recently or did we just learn about it? If so, that could make it newsworthy. The meaning of “recently” varies depending on the medium, of course. For a weekly news magazine, anything that happened since the previous edition the week before may be considered timely. For a 24-hour cable news channel, the timeliest news may be breaking news or something that is happening this very minute and can be covered by a reporter live at the scene.

      

Impact 
 Are many people affected or just a few? Contamination in the water system that serves your town’s 20,000 people has impact because it affects your audience directly. A report that 10 children were killed from drinking polluted water at a summer camp in a distant city has impact too, because the audience is likely to have a strong emotional response to the story. The fact that a worker cut a utility line is not big news, unless it happens to cause a blackout across the city that lasts for several hours.

      

Proximity 
 Did something happen close to home, or did it involve people from here? A plane crash in Chad will make headlines in N’Djamena, but it's unlikely to be front-page news in Chile unless the plane was carrying Chilean passengers.

      

Controversy 
     Are people in disagreement about this? It's human nature to be interested in stories that involve conflict, tension, or public debate. People like to take sides, and see whose position will prevail. Conflict doesn't always entail pitting one person’s views against another. Stories about doctors battling disease or citizens opposing an unjust law also involve conflict.

      

Prominence 

      

Is a well-known person involved? Ordinary activities or mishaps can become news if they involve a prominent person like a prime minister or a film star. That plane crash in Chad would make headlines around the world if one of the passengers were a famous rock musician.

      

Currency 
  Are people here talking about this? A government meeting about bus safety might not draw much attention, unless it happens to be scheduled soon after a terrible bus accident. An incident at a football match may be in the news for several days because it’s the main topic of conversation in town.

      

Oddity 
  Is what happened unusual? As the saying goes, “If a dog bites a man, that is not news. But if a man bites a dog, it’s news!” The extraordinary and the unexpected appeal to our natural human curiosity.

      

News organizations see their work as a public service, so news is made up of information that people need to know in order to go about their daily lives and to be productive citizens in a democracy. But most news organizations also are businesses that have to make a profit to survive, so the news also includes items that will draw an audience: stories people may want to know about just because they’re interesting. Those two characteristics need not be in conflict. Some of the best stories on any given day, in fact, are both important and interesting. But it’s fairly common for news organizations to divide stories into two basic categories: hard news and soft news, also called features (Dennis E., Merril J. Conversations on the media. NY, 2009). 

      

Notes

      

To be onto the air –  быть в эфире

      

Broadcast – радиовещание

      

To be of broad interest – интересовать широкий круг читателей

      

Value – важность, ценность, полезность

      

Medium – средство массовой информации

      

Affect – волновать, трогать, задевать, затрагивать, оказывать влияние

      

A utility line – линия электропередач

      

To entail pitting – противопоставлять, сталкивать

      

An unjust law – несправедливый закон

      

Mishap – несчастье, неудача; несчастный случай 

TYPES OF NEWS

      

Hard news is essentially the news of the day. It’s what you see on the front page of the newspaper or the top of the Web page, and what you hear at the start of a broadcast news report. For example, war, politics, business, and crime are frequent hard news topics. A strike announced today by the city’s bus drivers that leaves thousands of commuters unable to get to work is hard news. It’s timely, controversial, and has a wide impact close to home. The community needs the information right away, because it affects people’s daily lives.

      

By contrast, a story about a world-famous athlete who grew up in an orphanage would fit the definition of soft news. It’s a human-interest story involving a prominent person and it’s an unusual story that people likely would discuss with their friends. But there’s no compelling reason why it has to be published or broadcast on any particular day. By definition, that makes it a feature story. Many newspapers and online-news sites have separate feature sections for stories about lifestyles, home and family, the arts, and entertainment. Larger newspapers even may have weekly sections for specific kinds of features on food, health, education, and so forth.

      

Topic isn’t the only thing that separates hard news from features. In most cases, hard news and soft news are written differently. Hard news stories generally are written so that the audience gets the most important information as quickly as possible. Feature writers often begin with an anecdote or example designed primarily to draw the audience's interest, so the story may take longer to get to the central point.

      

Some stories blend these two approaches. Stories that are not time-sensitive but that focus on significant issues are often called “news features.” A story about one community’s struggle to deal with AIDS, for example, is a news feature. A story about a new treatment option for AIDS patients would be hard news. News features are an effective way to explore trends or complex social problems by telling individual human stories about how people experience them. 
 
 

II. Find the corresponding English equivalents to the following words and word combinations in the text.

   

Забастовка, первая полоса, сиротский приют, метод лечения, обычные темы, анализировать комплекс проблем социального характера, синдром приобретенного иммунодефицита, заинтересовать аудиторию, напротив, неопровержимые доводы. 

   

V. PROJECT/WRITING ACTIVITY

  

   

Look at the picture. Decide what types of news you will cover and make a news story. Take into consideration that the shortage of space in a paper means that the language must be clear and to the point. 
 
 

Unit 2. THE NATURE OF NEWS 

   

A. Lead in:

• Is it an easy task to cover news in a lucid fashion?
• Why is the emphasis on short sentences and on writing tight in general?
• Have you got any information on a good rule of thumb?

   

A good rule of thumb is to have just one main idea per sentence.

   

Examine these two sentences; choose one which is to the point. What sentence is more powerful?

1. The president signed the treaty.
2. The president, who was suffering from a cold, which he caught last week in Norway, signed the treaty, which he had originally opposed, because he said the changes that had been made were sound.

• Formulate, at least, three key points of good news writing.

• Read and translate the following quotations. Express your standpoint (agree or disagree).

   

“

Journalism is the ability

to meet

the challenge

of filling space

”

. 

Rebecca West

   

  “The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug”. Mark Twain

   

I. Before reading work in groups of two and speculate on possible answers.

   

1. The inverted pyramid is the model for news writing. Analyze two figures, where would you place heavier information at the top or at the bottom? Justify your answer. 

 
 
 
 
 

   

2. Learning to write is like learning to cook – except that, instead of a recipe book, we use the inverted triangle. Scrutinize this upside-down pyramid structure and explain the sequential order.  

The introduction (or intro) at the widest part of the triangle

will contain the Who and the What of the story, plus

perhaps the When?

The next few paragraphs (or pars) will build on the

intro, explaining more of What happened,

How, Where and Why?

Background will be included

to add interest and to put

the story in context.

Finally, loose ends

will be tied up

   

3. Rudyard Kipling wrote the following and it is worth remembering. Try to compose your own verse.

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who. 

   

4. Presume the origin of the inverted pyramid. When and how was it found?

   

5. Scan the paragraph to see if your guesses are correct.

      

The inverted pyramid format was developed during the Civil War. Newspaper correspondents covering that war’s great battles relied on telegraph machines to transmit their stories back to their newspapers’ offices. But often saboteurs would cut the telegraph lines, so reporters learned to transmit the most important information – Gen. Lee defeated at Gettysburg, for instance – at the very start of the transmission to make sure it got through successfully. The news writing format developed then has served reporters well ever since. 

   

II. You are going to read the texts about a few basic rules for structuring any news story. The format is easy to pick up and you may follow it in your practice. Read the text in detail. 

THE INVERTED PYRAMID

      

News stories are usually written using the inverted pyramid style of writing. In this style, the most important information is found in the beginning or lead of the story. This includes most of the 5 W’s (Who, What, Where, When, Why). Information such as supporting details and quotes are added in order of importance with the least important information being added at the end.

   

This shape is useful when reporting important or breaking news, when timeliness is of the essence. If you are the first to report a significant development, you’ll want to tell the audience what has happened right at the top of your story. A report on a massive storm, for example, likely would begin with the death toll and the location of the heaviest damage. Writers who resist using this structure when it is called for may be accused of “burying the lead,” making it more difficult for the audience to determine the story’s importance.