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Chapter 8

Powerpoints for Instructors

Reporting information and evaluating likelihood

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Exercises

Exercise 1: Different design for different audiences

Select a few stories from a newspaper. Study how the writers use quotations in their stories:

  • Where do the quotes appear?
  • How long are the quotes?
  • What verbs are used to report quotes?

Exercise 2: Attribution in news reporting

The article below, dealing with speculations about a possible attack in Northern Ireland, was used in Chapter 3, Exercise 2, to exemplify the use of vague or anonymous attributions in news reporting. As seen in Chapter 3, the use of vague and anonymous sources often reflects the fact that the information reported is not certain, or is somewhat speculative.
Study the article and examine:

  • all the expressions of modality in the article
  • the use of quotes in relation to the expressions of modality
  • the use of unmodulated expressions to refer to past events

Terrorist attack in the North 'highly likely'

By Tom Brady Security Editor, Thursday October 25, 2012, (http://www.independent.ie/national-news/terrorist-attack-in-the-north-highly-likely-3271979.html)

Exercise 3: Use of reported speech to convey a point of view

As seen in Chapter 5, good reporting aims to be objective and emphasize facts, not interpretations. When writing their stories, reporters aim to be invisible to their readers, and they do so by using impersonal language and refraining from expressing personal views and opinions. Thus, for example, first- or second- person pronouns (I, me, we, our, my, us, you, yours) are avoided – unless they are part of a source’s direct quote. Emotive words or expressions that may imply an evaluation or judgment – for example, expressions like: an interesting story, an impressive result, a tragic mistake, an avoidable sentence, a silly remark, she looked sad – are avoided, as they betray the reporter’s opinion.

Yet, there are many ways in which journalists can still convey their point of view. One is through the order of presentation of the story events and the selection of the sources’ words.

The following article reports on a boy whose school forbade him to eat a sandwich because it did not contain lettuce. A careful reading of the article suggests that the journalist sides with the boy’s mother and is critical of the school’s ban.

Analyse the article and study how the writer’s opinion is conveyed through:

  • the order of presentation of events (recall that in the inverted pyramid structure the final paragraphs of the article conventionally contain less relevant information)
  • quotes (who are the sources? what information is reported? what words are selected?)

Are the journalist’s choices likely to impact the reader’s opinion on the story?

Boy banned from eating cheese sandwich

http://www.telegraph.co.uk, April 28, 2010, (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7643996/Boy-banned-from-eating-cheese-sandwich.html)

Exercise 4: Quotes as a means of distancing from the truthfulness of the news

As seen in Chapter 8, quotes can be used as a distancing device, that is, as a tool enabling journalists to show that they are not endorsing what the sources say. This may be a particularly useful strategy when the reported news is controversial, as in the example below.

Below are links to two articles dealing with the same news: murder accusations levelled against the former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, already in prison after conviction for  abuse of office. Her conviction was seen by the European Union and other international organizations as politically inspired.

The two articles provide different perspectives on the event, the one from the Huff Post being somewhat more neutral than the one from the Taipei Times.

Analyse both articles and study the perspectives offered, looking in particular at how they are presented through the use of quotes, the choice of verbs and the thematization of the subjects.

Yulia Tymoshenko Murder Case: Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Suspected Of Killing Business Rival

By MARIA DANILOVA, (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/19/yulia-tymoshenko-murder-case-suspect_n_2511241.html)

Prosecutors accuse Yulia Tymoshenko of murder

Reuters, Kiev, January 20, 2013, (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2013/01/20/2003552993/1)