Media Studies: Newspapers
Broadsheet: A ‘quality’ newspaper with serious and in-depth reporting on a wide range of
important issues. It uses formal language and tries to give the facts without exaggerating.
Tabloid: Reports mostly on scandals, gossip and celebrities, in a sensational style. It uses
simple, exaggerated language and slang.
Front pages: The first part of the newspaper that you see is the front page. This has to be
eye-catching to convince you to buy the paper. Newspapers use different tricks to attract
our attention. You can tell the difference between a tabloid and a broadsheet at a glance.
Stylistic Features
Features of Broadsheets Features of Tabloids
1) Layout and Content: 1) Layout and Content:
2) Headlines: 2) Headlines:
3) Reports and Articles: 3) Reports and Articles:
Put the following features in the right column:
[Link] and content: Cover sensational news/ Cover important global and national stories/
Cover stories about scandals, gossip, celebrities and sport. / Cover stories on politics, finance and current
affairs.
[Link]: factual /use of slang/ informative/ formal language/ exaggerated/ serious language/ bold
colour and print/ dramatic/ black print on white
[Link] and articles: many quotations/ few quotations/ highly researched/ some research/lots of factual
details/ fewer factual details/ very biased/ quite neutral/large eye-catching photographs/few
photographs/large print/ small print/ a lot of speculation
Headlines: Tell you what a
newspaper story is about.
Broadsheets use informative,
serious language. For example,
“Young Man shot dead at his
home”. Tabloids use sensational
and exaggerated language. For
example, “Frantic hunt for lone
knife raider”. Journalists play
with the language in the
headline to grab attention.
Headlines often include puns,
rhymes, well-known phrases,
clichés, song references,
alliteration and assonance. Rhythm and punctuation also play an important role in making a good headline.
Puns: When people play with words that sound similar or that mean the same thing, in order to be funny,
it is called a ‘pun’. For example:
“Tiger admits: I’m a Cheetah!” (pronounced like ‘’cheater’’ about Tiger Woods
cheating on his wife)
Britney SHEARS(about Britney Spears shaving/ shearing her head)
Could this brie (French cheese instead of ‘’be”)?
Rhyming words: Headlines that use rhyming words sound appealing, like mini-poems.
Example: Owl on the prowl
Alliteration: Headlines often repeat the same letter to make them sound powerful.
For example: “Tax Hike Horror” “Minister Blames Bad Budget” ‘’ Bamboo Bikes in Britain’’
Homophones: Two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings are also often
used. Example: Oh dear oh deer for a story about problems an increase in the deer population is causing.
How do you write a newspaper headline?
The perfect headline is short, accurate and attention grabbing. A headline should sum up the news story in
as few words as possible; every word counts in a headline and any unnecessary words are left out.
For example:
[Link] Awaiting Execution Saved, Assad's Hellish Prisons Liberated
b. Baby found alive two days after Turkey earthquake
Write the complete sentences for the two headlines above.
a.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
b.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
What words have been removed? Why?
.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Read the headlines written below. Rewrite them to make them more attention-grabbing.
[Link] Prime Minister announces that there is going to be an extra bank holiday.
[Link] sent a large spacecraft to explore Venus but it got lost.
3.A local 10-year-old girl beat thousands of people to win the London Marathon.
4.A mysterious bear-like creature was spotted living in a tree in a local park.
Complete the boxes with the words provided:
Column/caption/ weather/advert/newspaper name/price/date/headline/photograph/article
Watch the video Riverdance Longest Line World Record 21st July 2013
Read the article Dancers set Riverdance world record in Dublin - BBC News and write down all the information about
the main facts given:
Main Facts (What, Who, Where, When, Why, How)
Look at the other headlines referring to the same event:
[Link]'s longest Riverdance line record broken in Dublin (the Guardian)
[Link] record Riverdance as more than 2,000 dance through Dublin streets (The Independent)
[Link] breaks world record for longest Riverdance line (Irish Independent)
[Link] Flatley eat your heart out: More than 2,000 'Riverdancers' set new world record in Dublin for the longest
dance line (Daily Mail)
[Link] world record as 1,693 form longest Riverdance line (The Journal)
f.2,300 people will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the longest Riverdance Line of Dancers in Dublin!
([Link])
[Link] world record broken by Irish dancers in Dublin (Digital Spy)
[Link] dancers Riverdance to world record in Dublin (NorthwichGuardian)
What do all the headlines have in common?
Find the odd one out (= l’intrus)
Which is the best headline in your opinion and why?
Write a headline for a fake event:
