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John LandrøOctober 10 2005
EN- 113 English Communication
Lesson 16
1.
The Press (in the UK)
Newspapers were born with the middle class in the 18th century, and some of the present national dailies actually date back to that century - e.g. the still very influential Times (1785) and The Observer (1791). Real mass circulation, however, was not reached until the majority of the working classes had achieved some degree of literacy following the 1870 Education Act. That period began with the publication of, among others, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express, aimed at the lower-middle-class readers, and of The Daily Mirror, aimed at the working classes around the turn of the century.
The differential readership and different political leanings are still in existence. In practice a sharp distinction remains between the "quality" and the "popular" (often tabloid) papers. One of the traditional critical points being made about the role of the press (of the quality/tabloid distinction) is that it is predominantly conservative in outlook and that it supports the Conservative Party in politics. This picture changed, though not necessarily for good, when almost all daily newspapers backed Tony Blair in his 1997 election campaign, with the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail as the only real supporters of John Major. Traditionally, however, out of Britain's present 10 national morning newspapers only The Daily Mirror and to some extent The Guardian used to express support of the Labour Party, and only two others (Today and The Independent) may be said to have taken up a neutral position between the two major parties. It is, of course, debatable to what extent news media can influence or change voters' minds, but there was a considerable difference between the Sun backing Blair in 1997 and the smear campaigns produced in 1992 by the same paper against the then leader of the Labour Party, Neil Konnock.
(From Contemporary British Society by J. Sevaldsen, O. Vadmand & J.E. Mustad; Høgskoleforlaget)
2.
The Press (in the USA)
Newspapers and magazines have long been major lines of communication and have always reached large audiences. Today, more than 11,000 different periodicals are published as either weekly, monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, or semi-annual editions. In 1986, a total of 9,144 newspapers were published in the United States. More than 62 million copies of daily newspapers are printed every day and over 58 million copies of Sunday papers are published every week.
Readership levels, however, are not as high as they once were. Newspapers have had to cope with competition from radio and television. They have suffered a decline in circulation from the peak years around the turn of the century largely because of the trend of urban populations moving to the suburbs. Studies show that the most suburban readers prefer to get "serious" news from television and tend to read newspapers primarily for comics, sports, fashions, crime reports, and local news. Nowadays, Americans consider television their most important source of news, and a majority ranks television as the most believable news source. Accordingly, newspapers have made changes to increase their readership levels. Some established metropolitan newspapers are now published in "zoned" editions for different regional audiences. In some cases, they have lost their readership to new weekly suburban newspapers that resemble magazines in format. To meet the public demand for more feature material, some publishers have started adding "lifestyle" and "home living" sections to their papers to make them like magazines.
(From America in close-up by E. Fiedler, R. Jansen, M. Norman-Risch; Longman)
3.
Prince warns 'cynical' press
The Prince of Wales warned an audience of newspaper editors and proprietors today that public sector workers were often targets of unfair, cynical criticism by the press.
The prince attacked a "culture of complaining" in Britain and called for more recognition of the work done by doctors, nurses, teachers and the police.
In a robust speech to mark the 300th anniversary of the launch of the first British daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, the prince laid part of the blame for the cynicism corroding public life on the press for sometimes being "too ready" to assume the worst case scenario.
He described the culture of cynicism as being like an "acid that eats away unseen" at the valuable qualities of the British that are respected by other nations.
Acknowledging the irony of his position as the subject of many newspaper stories himself, Prince Charles said that over 300 years the press had been "awkward, cantankerous, cynical, bloody-minded, at times intrusive, at times inaccurate and at times deeply unfair and harmful to individuals and to institutions".
But he added that newspapers also aimed to keep the public informed about developments in society, to scrutinise those in power, to uncover wrongdoing and to entertain readers.
Charles expressed gratitude "and surprise" for the way in which newspapers had given his sons, Princes William and Harry, as much privacy as possible.
Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp, Richard Desmond of Express newspapers and Pearson's Marjorie Scardino were among 25 media bosses attending the ceremony, held at St Bride's, the "journalists' church", off Fleet Street in London.
(Jessica Hodgson, The Guardian, Monday, March 11, 2002)