Analysis Of A Hard News Print Article

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Student Number: 212275682

Module Code and Title: JAR2230 (Newswriting)

Lecturer Name: Mr Thabo Ramphobole

Assignment Name/Topic: Assignment 2 (A Close Critical Analysis of a Hard News Print Article)

Plagiarism Declaration

I, Bianca Wicks, understand that plagiarism is the presentation of someone else’s ideas as my own. These ideas or words can come from a class mate, an ex-student, an encyclopaedia, book, journal, magazine, newspaper, the internet, or even a pamphlet. When I have consulted such sources, they have been carefully and fully acknowledged, both in my assignment, and on my Reference Page. I have not plagiarised in this assignment.

I understand that if I am found to have committed plagiarism, I will have to face disciplinary action.

Signed: _______________________

Full Name: ____________________

Student Number: ________________

Introduction

This assignment analyses a hard news article entitled Councillor fights off attackers, bakkie set alight (attached). Firstly, the elements which make this a news article will be discussed. The concept of genre will then be explained, followed by the concept of discourse/ discursive practice. Finally, an explanation of the media’s agenda setting function will be given, leading to the conclusion that news is not necessarily ‘objective’. The assignment is structured so the reader can easily understand what the above concepts are by providing definitions/ explanations of these concepts in relation to the chosen article.

Analysing a hard news print article

Before one can analyse a text as a ‘news article’, one must ask oneself: ‘what is news/ what makes an event newsworthy?’ Nel (2005, p.45) asserts that there are three core values that influence journalists/ editors when selecting which events to report on/ publish: "immediacy; interest for a given community; and significance". The chosen article fits this frame as it is about an event which occurred in the past weekend (immediacy): ANC Nelson Mandela Bay councillor Aaron Nyikilana was attacked again and his vehicle was set on fire by his attackers in the township of Motherwell (interest for a given community and significance).

Other elements which determine the selection, omission, picking and discarding of news items branched from the above. These are now commonly known as ‘news values’. These can include considerations such as: intensity or threshold value, continuity, clarity/lack of ambiguity and consonance. The article has a certain amount of intensity or threshold value as it deals with not one, but many attacks on the same person in the same place which means it also has continuity as it also refers to previous attacks and much of the circumstances have not changed; it has clarity/ lack of ambiguity since it uses simple language and mostly concrete concepts to leave the reader with no doubt as to what the story is about and why they should be reading it; and it has consonance meaning it confirms the reader’s expectation that a township is a dangerous place to live or that unliked politician will be attacked by angry residents.

The identification of the attached text as ‘news’, places it into a specific category or ‘genre’. Genre is simply the category into which one places media texts which have similar characteristics (Hartley, 2002). As Lacey (2000, p.135) explains, "once a text has been identified as belonging to a specific genre then the reader has certain expectations about what will happen and what rules apply in this particular narrative world". When one knows something to be news, one expects to learn about an actual event where real people were involved as opposed to a work of fiction which contains fabricated characters and situations. However, this is a very broad classification: there are still variable factors that will influence the reader’s expectation of the content matter. One sub-category or niched genre this text can be placed in is print.

This creates new expectations for the reader: the story will most likely appear in a physical, printed publication (usually a newspaper or magazine); and they will have to read the words and most probably (but not always) view an attached photograph in order to determine the content of the story. The story can further be categorised as a 'hard' news article. This distinguishes it as a very serious report, using formal sentence and word construction. It also puts the article in opposition to 'soft' news which has more of a human interest aspect and covers less serious subjects.

Humans prefer to place all things (be they literary works or shoes or even other people) into categories because it helps them to better understand the world they live in. Thus certain conventions and rules have been adopted by professional groups to further this understanding and categorising which led to the creation of discourse.

Hartley (2002, p.73) defines discourse as simply: "the social process of making and producing sense(s)". The specific discourse used by a specific profession is known as their discursive practice. The discursive practice of journalism has certain conventions and rules – both formal and informal - that determine how an article is constructed in terms of structure and content (Sonderling, 2009).

In writing the article Councillor fights off attackers, bakkie set alight the journalist Michael Kimberley had to conform to the conventions of the ‘inverted pyramid’. In this structure, the most important information must be presented in the first paragraph (answering most of the first six basic questions of who? what? when? where? why? and how?), followed by less important information in subsequent paragraphs. The report begins with a summary of what the story is more or less about: "ANC Nelson Mandela Bay councilor Aaron Nyikilana narrowly escaped death at the weekend when he was attacked and his vehicle set alight" (Kimberley, 2013). It ends with other information that is the least relevant to the story: "ANC Nelson Mandela Bay secretary Zandisile Qupe’s vehicle was also set alight three weeks ago" (Kimberley, 2013).

As part of this formal organization of media texts is the use of headlines. It can be argued that a headline’s function is to give an article an identifiable title, but using this definition means that even the titles of poems could be called ‘headlines’. What differentiates a headline from the titles of other literary works is its use as the first summary of the article. This makes a headline specific to journalism, thus it forms part of this profession’s discursive practice.

Another aspect of journalism’s discursive practice is the use of the active and passive voice. In the attached article, the journalist mostly uses the simpler, shorter active voice (thereby emphasising the subject that is performing the action), for example: "A number of protestors shut down seven more councillors’ offices last month as well" (Kimberley, 2013).

However, sometimes he prefers to use the longer, passive form (often when the doer of the action is not mentioned), for example: "Stones were also thrown at Nyikilana’s vehicle while he was driving in Motherwell last month" (Kimberley, 2013).

Besides journalism, there are various other discourses or discursive practices, each with its own specific structure and conventions. To quote Hartley (2002, p.74), "some are more prestigious, legitimated and hence ‘more obvious’ than others, while there are discourses that have an uphill struggle to win any recognition at all. Thus discourses are power relations".

This leads to the media’s function of agenda setting. As McCombs & Shaw (1995, p. 153) remark: "In choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about a given issue, but also how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position". People receive most of their information from secondary sources such as the media. Some of these people (mostly more educated groups) go and find/ask for information themselves, while others (the majority) are given information without making much effort to acquire it (McCombs & Shaw, 1995). In other words, "On any single subject many ‘hear’ but few ‘listen’" (Berelson, 1954, as cited in McCombs & Shaw, 1995, p.153).

A popular viewpoint when discussing agenda setting is that the media cannot tell their readers how to think about a subject or issue but they can tell readers what to think about (Cohen, 1963, as cited in McCombs & Shaw, 1995, p.154). The media thus set a news agenda by deciding where to place content within their publication. For example, the chosen article was placed on the front page of The Herald alongside another story which covers the death of six people involved in a car-accident. By choosing to place these two stories on the front page, The Herald has decided that the topics (among others) its readers will discuss for the day are violence, death or road-safety. The publication is not explicitly telling its readers what viewpoint to take on these topics, but rather that they should have a viewpoint on these subjects in the first place.

The reasons why a newspaper decides to have its reader think about certain subjects and not others are varied. Ideally, editorial staffs deem a topic as more important than another because they want to inform their readers of the issue, thus working in the public interest. However, it could also be that they want to distract the readers from events that reflect negatively upon the newspaper (or its owners or advertisers) and could damage their reputation, thereby leading to loss of revenue. Editorial staffs may also decide to leave out articles that cover events/ issues that may cause the readers to disagree with the newspaper’s ideology. Whatever the reason for creating a certain agenda, one thing is clear: the media are gatekeepers and a gatekeeper’s job is to allow certain things in and to keep others out.

Conclusion

Journalism claims to be a profession concerned with objectivity, but as is clear from the analysis above there are various biases that contribute to news production. An event can only be classified as news when it meets specific conditions, thereby adhering to a specific genre. It is then written according to certain discursive conventions and forms part of a certain agenda set by a specific publication. When it finally reaches its intended reader, it is no longer simply words on a page; it is a message, a carefully constructed means of communication.