Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism

304 Pages·2008·1.95 MB·English

by  Bob Franklin

Pulling Newspapers Apart
Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism explores contemporary UK
national and local newspapers at a significant and pivotal moment in their development
when some pundits are busily, if mistakenly, announcing their demise.
The book offers a detailed examination of features which previous studies have tended
to neglect, such as editorial formats (News, op-ed pages, readers’ letters, cartoons,
obituaries, advice columns, features and opinion columns), aspects of newspaper design
(page layout, photographs, supplements, online editions, headlines, the emergence of the
compact and Berliner editions), newspaper contents (sport, sex and page 3, royalty,
crime, moral panics and politics) as well as the content of newspapers which is not
generated by in-house journalists (advertising, TV listings, horoscopes, agency copy and
public relations materials).
Edited by Bob Franklin, Professor of Journalism Studies at the Cardiff School of
Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, individual chapters are written in an
authoritative but accessible style by distinguished academics and journalists including
Nicholas Brett, Nicholas Campion, Peter Cole, Ros Coward, Chas Critcher, Aeron Davis,
John Ellis, Jim Hall, Jackie Harrison, Tim Holmes, Nicholas Jones, Eamonn McCabe,
Brian McNair, Paul Manning, Peter Meech, Sarah Niblock, Angela Phillips, Eamonn
Rafferty, John Richardson, Karen Ross, Colin Seymour-Ure, Nigel Starck, John Sugden,
Mark Tattersall, Alan Tomlinson, Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Claire Wardle.
This innovative and accessibly written collection provides journalism and media
students with an invaluable study of newspapers in the digital age.

Bob Franklinis Professor of Journalism Studies at Cardiff University. He is the Editor
of Journalism Studies and Journalism Practice. Previous publications include Local
Journalism and Local Media (2006),Television Policy: The MacTaggart Lectures (2005),
Packaging Politics (2004) and Newszak and News Media among many others.
Dr James Thomas (1971–2007)
On the day that this book was posted to the publisher, news about the death of Dr James
Thomas began to reach his many students, colleagues and friends at Cardiff University
and around the world. James was a brilliant young historian of journalism studies; a field
in which there are too few. He was a scholar of considerable achievement but even
greater potential, an inspirational teacher and a warm and generous colleague. He valued
his roots in the Rhondda Valleys which helped to shape the radical voice which informed
much of his published work. This book is dedicated to his memory. I shall miss very
much not hearing his good humoured, gently prodding but forensic criticisms of our
efforts to analyse recent developments in the UK press across the following pages.
Pulling Newspapers Apart

Analysing Print Journalism

Edited by Bob Franklin

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledgeis an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of
Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Editorial Selection and Material © 2008 Bob Franklin
Chapters © 2008 The Contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Pulling newspapers apart :analysing print journalism / edited by
Bob Franklin.
p.cm.
Includes index.
1. Journalism–Great Britain. 2. British newspapers–History–20th century.
3. Newspaper layout and typography–Great Britain.I. Franklin, Bob, 1949–
PN5119P85 2008
072′.0904–dc22
2007036727
ISBN 0-203-63070-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 10: 0-415-42555-7 (hbk)
ISBN 10: 0-415-42556-5 (pbk)
ISBN 10: 0-203-63070-X (ebk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-42555-1 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-42556-8 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-203-63070-9 (ebk)
Contents

List of Contributors vii

Introduction Newspapers: trends and developments 1

BOB FRANKLIN

35
PART 1 Editorial formats

1 News 37

JACKIE HARRISON
2 Features 46

SARAH NIBLOCK
3 Readers’ letters 56

JOHN RICHARDSON
4 Op-ed pages 67

KARIN WAHL-JORGENSEN
5 Cartoons 75

COLIN SEYMOUR-URE
6 Obituaries 87

NIGEL STARCK
7 Advice columnists 97

ANGELA PHILLIPS
8 I, Columnist 106

BRIAN MCNAIR

115
PART 2 Editorial contents

9 Post-ironic page3: porn for the plebs 117

KAREN ROSS
10 The monarchy 126

ROS COWARD
11 Crime reporting 136

CLAIRE WARDLE
12 Sport journalism: persistent themes and changing times 145

ALAN TOMLINSON AND JOHN SUGDEN
13 Moral panics and newspaper coverage of binge drinking 154

CHAS CRITCHER
14 Politics and the press 163

NICHOLAS JONES
172
PART 3 Newspaper design

15 Compacts 174

PETER COLE
16 Photography in newspapers 183

EAMONN MCCABE
17 Supplements 189

NICHOLAS BRETT AND TIM HOLMES
18 Page layout and design 196

MARK TATTERSALL
19 Online editions: newspapers and the ‘new’ news 204

JIM HALL
20 Headlines 212

EAMONN RAFFERTY

221
PART 4 Non-editorial contents

21 Advertising 223

PETER MEECH
22 TV pages 231

JOHN ELLIS
23 Horoscopes and popular culture 239

NICHOLAS CAMPION
24 The Press Association and news agency sources 247

PAUL MANNING
25 Public relations in the news 256

AERON DAVIS

Index 265
List of Contributors
Nicholas Brettis Deputy Managing Director of BBC Magazines. He worked his way to
his current position through local and national newspapers and then through
magazines, starting as a reporter and ending up as Editor of Radio Times before
moving into management. The British Society of Magazine Editors recently honoured
him with the Mark Boxer Award for Lifetime Achievement. This is the highest
accolade in British magazine publishing, decided by his peers in the industry. He has
recently been appointed Chair of the Periodicals Training Council, the industry’s
training and development body.
Nicholas Campion read History at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and London University,
and is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Wales,
Lampeter, where he is Head of the Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, and
Course Director of the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology. He was formerly
Senior Lecturer in History at Bath Spa University, where he taught courses on the
history of astrology, the occult and magic, as well as contemporary New Age and
pagan beliefs. He has an insider’s knowledge of media astrology, having written the
Daily Mail’s horoscope column from 1986 to 1992.
Peter Cole is Professor and Head of the Department of Journalism Studies at the
University of Sheffield. Before joining the academy Cole worked as a national
newspaper journalist. He was a Reporter, lobby correspondent, News Editor and
Deputy Editor on the Guardian. He was founder Editor of the Sunday Correspondent,
Editor of the ‘News Review’ section of the Sunday Times, Londoner’s Diary Editor on
the Evening Standard and reporter, diary writer and New York correspondent on the
London Evening News. He is on the board of the National Council for the Training of
Journalists and the Society of Editors. He chairs the Society’s training committee,
where he has been responsible for reports on training and newsroom diversity. He
wrote a weekly column on media affairs for the Independent on Sunday from 2004 to
2007.
Rosalind Coward is Professor of Journalism at Roehampton University. Beforethis, she
worked for many years as a freelance journalist. Her career in journalism includes
feature writing for many national newspapers and magazines, including the Evening
Standard, the Daily Mail, New Statesman, Cosmopolitan and She magazine. Her main
journalism has been for the Observer and the Guardian and, along with feature
writing, she has written regular columns for both papers. She has also been a
columnist for the Ecologist magazine. She is the author of several books including
Language and Materialism (with John Ellis), Female Desire and Diana: The
Authorised Portrait. She has most recently written Mandela: The Authorised Portrait.
Her research interests include royalty and the media, celebrity culture and journalism
and the environment. She is on the board of Greenpeace UK and patron of Transport
2000.
Chas Critcher is Emeritus Professor of Communications at Sheffield Hallam University
and Visiting Professor in Media and Communications at Swansea University. He
originally co-authored Policing The Crisis (Macmillan, 1979), a study of social
reaction to mugging. His most recent publications include for the Open University
Press Moral Panics and the Media (2003) and an edited collection Critical Readings
in Moral Panics and the Media (2006). His current research interests include a range
of perceived threats to children, from the mass media to mass inoculation.
Aeron Davis is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the MA in Political Communications in
the Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College. His research
interests include: public relations, politics and political communications; promotional
culture, media sociology and news production; markets and economic
sociology/cultural economy. He has conducted research on communications at
Westminster, the London Stock Exchange, among the major political parties and
across the trades unions movement. He has published on each of these topics in
journals and edited collections and is the author of Public Relations Democracy
(2002) and the Mediation of Power (2007). He is currently researching the influence
of media on decision making in politics and is also working on a book on the rise of
promotional culture for Polity Press.
John Ellis is Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway University of London. He is the
author of TV FAQ (2007), Seeing Things (2000) and Visible Fictions (1982) and has
written for journals including Screen and Media Culture and Society. Between 1982
and 1999 he ran the independent TV production company Large Door making series
about cinema, food and other cultural issues. He still watches too much TV.
Bob Franklin is Professor of Journalism Studies in the Cardiff School of Journalism,
Media and Cultural Studies. He is the Editor of Journalism Studies and Journalism
Practice, as well as co-editor of Sage’s new series entitled ‘Journalism Studies: Key
Texts’. Recent book-length publications include Local Journalism and Local Media:
Making the Local News (2006), Television Policy: The MacTaggart Lectures (2005),
Key Concepts in Journalism Studies (2005) and Packaging Politics: Political
Communication in Britain’s Media Democracy (2004).
Jim Hall teaches and writes about online journalism at University College, Falmouth,
where he is the course leader of BA (Hons) Journalism. He is the author of Online
Journalism: A Critical Primer and speaks and writes extensively on the subject. He
has been Visiting Professor in Online Journalism at Concordia Audentes University in
Estonia and teaches the online newspaper elements at the annual Diena School in
Riga, Latvia. He is currently working on the second edition of Online Journalism.
Jackie Harrison is Professor of Public Communication in the Department of Journalism
Studies at the University of Sheffield. She is currently researching the ‘Architecture of
News’. This examines the news, its constituent features and modes of representations,
its cultures of production and how it deals with issues of truth and truthfulness, spatial
stories and multiple histories and user-generated content. She is the author of News
(Routledge, 2006).
Tim Holmes is Course Co-ordinator of the Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine
Journalism at Cardiff University. He started his career in journalism in 1978 as a staff
writer on a motorcycle magazine and ended up as a partner in a magazine publishing
house. He began teaching at Cardiff in 1995. Since then he has championed magazine
journalism as a distinctive form, has initiated magazine modules at undergraduate and
masters level and is happy to be supervising an increasing number of dissertations in
the field. Recent publications include guest editing a special issue of Journalism
Studies (2007) on Magazine Journalism.
Nicholas Jones was a BBC political and industrial correspondent for 30 years. He began
his career as a journalist on The News, Portsmouth in 1960 and continues to write and
lecture on the relationship between politicians and the news media. His books include
Strikes and the Media (1986), Soundbites and Spin Doctors (1995), Sultans of Spin
(1999), Control Freaks (2002) and Trading Information (2006).
Eamonn McCabe was Picture Editor of the Guardian from 1988 until 2001. He won
many awards for his photography and was named Picture Editor of the Year a record
six times. He has published several books on photography and appears regularly on
radio and television talking about photography.
Brian McNair is Professor of Journalism and Communication at the University of
Strathclyde. He is the author of several books on journalism, including An
Introduction to Political Communication (4th edition, Routledge, 2007), News and
Journalism In the UK (4th edition, Routledge, 2003) and The Sociology of Journalism
(Arnold, 1998). He is a regular contributor to the UK press, and has written columns
and essays on a variety of topics for Scotland On Sunday, the Sunday Herald, the
Evening Times, the Guardian and other newspapers.
Paul Manning is Head of the School of Media and Film at the University of Winchester.
His research interests and publications have focused upon the politics of news sources
and news organisations, the symbolic representation of drug and substance misuse,
and the relationship between crime and media.
Peter Meech is a member of the Stirling Media Research Institute and Senior Lecturer in
the Department of Film and Media Studies, University of Stirling.
Sarah Niblock is Reader in Journalism at Brunel University. She has worked in
journalism for nearly 20 years as a regional and national news reporter, and wrote
features for Cosmopolitan and Company for a number of years. Sarah is the author of
several books including Inside Journalism (1996) and News Production: Theory and
Practice (2006, co-authored with David Machin). She has published papers in leading
journals including Journalism Practice, Journalism and British Journalism Review.
She has written chapters in Story: The Heart of the Matter (2007), Print Journalism: A
Critical Introduction (2005), Reading Sex and the City (2004) and Feminist Visual
Culture (2000). A further book, on journalism ethics as portrayed in cinema since the
dawn of film, is in production.
Angela Phillips is Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has
been a journalist for over 30 years, starting in the alternative press of the 1970s and
moving on to work for national newspapers, magazines, television and radio. She
worked for several years as a photojournalist before moving into print, and she now
teaches feature writing and journalism studies. She is interested in critical journalism
research from a practitioner point of view and has recently written a book: Good
Writing for Journalists (Sage, 2006), which attempts to bring together critical theory
with critical practice.
Eamonn Rafferty is Sub-editor on the Financial Times.