news production - Re: front page

[Gertraud Benke]

I'm quite interested in this query, and would like to expand it a little
bit, as I am presently writing up a study on texts in the  newsproduction.

I would appreciate greatly any reference (in English and German) in the
following three areas:

(a) lingusitic analysis on news agency texts or anything which looks at
text production in a news agency.
I know the two 1988 books of van Dijk (see below) who consider news agency
texts in passing, as well as Wilke/Rosenberg (!991): Die Nachrichtenmacher.
Zur Struktur und Arbeitsweise von Nachrichenagenturen am Beispiel von AP
und Dpa. - this book makes some passing notes on linguistic characteristics
of newsagency texts, and also a short passage on the production of news
agency texts.
Right now I have the impression that in general there is very little out
there which looks as news agency copies in their own right (but I'd be
delighted to discover otherwise)

(b) description of the text production in the newsroom (I myself did an
ethnographic study of how journalists worked with the texts, i.e. did they
work with a wire text on the computer screen, or did they compose a new
text - I would appreciate anything along these lines, i.e. how does a text
go through the editing cylce. A good match to that is Bell, Alan (1990):
The Language of News Media

(c) Changes done in the editing process / rewriting process.
I have a very nice conf. manuscript by Houghton, Diane &  Hewings (1992):
Making economics more accessible? A study on the process of rewriting an
economics text for a wider readership; - but I'd naturally prefer something
on news texts. (However, there is something on this also in Bell, 1990; and
also in one of the van Dijk's, 1988).


At 19:13 23.8.1999 , you wrote:
>At 03:11 PM 8/23/99 +0100, Waleed Al-Amri wrote:
>
>>Could anyone please direct me to publications on the subject of the
>>features, linguistc or otherwise, of the 'front page' in dailies
>>mainly. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Kress and Hodge (1979): Language as Ideology - is certainly an early reference
Bell, Alan (see above)
van Dijk (1988): News as Discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
van Dijk (!988): News Analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

You might also look at Kress, Gunther & Leeuwen, Theo (1996): Reading
Images. Routledge. The system presented there for analyzing pictures and
graphics etc. is not put to use for a front page itself (but to some other
pages), but I have heartd some talks by Gunther Kress who applied it in a
comparision of the front pages of two different English papers. (Maybe he
has written up something on that?) In any case, I think this might be a
useful tool for the analysis.)

Thank ya!
Gertraud