Підручник для студентів старших курсів

Make sure you can answer these questions.

1. 
   What kind of publications can be regarded as immediate forerunners of the British press?
   
2. 
   What were the first, more or less, regular series of English newspapers and why did they cease publication or were suppressed?
   
3. 
   What was the first British newspaper supported by the Government and what kind of information did it carry?
   
4. 
   What were the requirements of the publishers imposed on the first English daily newspaper?
   
5. 
   When did the British newspaper come to be very much like what it is today?
   
6. 
   What factors left an indelible mark on newspaper English and what was it vigorously criticized for by purists in the field of language use?
   
7. 
   When did the newspaper English develop into a separate functional style and what features is it characterized by?
   
8. 
   What are the two main functions of modern English newspaper and what newspaper genres serve as main vehicles of these functions?
   
9. 
   Characterize the main streams in the British press and the kind of newspapers they are represented by?
   
10. 
    Dwell on the differences between tabloids and broadsheets.
    

II. NEWS REPORTING
General Notes
2.1. Demands and constrains of the newspaper English. The reporting of news reflects one of the most difficult and constraining situations to be found in the area of language use. The chief constraint is the perpetual battle against the pressures of time and space. Only those who have tried to write something for a newspaper know just how crippling these pressures can be. They are absolutes. To fit a column, 20 words may need to be cut. There is no argument. If the writer of the original material does not meet the demand, someone else higher up the editorial chain of command will do it instead. Nothing is sacrosanct. Even a letter to the editor can be chopped in half. And there is no comeback. The editor’s decision is final.
There is also the constraint imposed by a favoured conception of audience – an awareness of what ‘the readership’ wants. This applies to everything, from the initial judgment about what should be reported to the final decisions about exactly how much should be said about it, where in the medium it should appear, and how it should be written. The finished product can differ greatly from what is first submitted. Very famous reporters may see their piece appear more or less as they wrote it. But an average news report is the product of many hands, hence the so-called shared authorship style of news reports, which suggests their reliance on preferred forms of expression, their lack of stylistic idiosyncrasy (even in the reports of named journalists), and their consistency of style over long periods of time. Once a newspaper has opted for a particular style, it tends to stay with it, and imposes it vigorously on its material. It is not difficult to identify certain features which characterize certain newspapers. That is why it is possible to parody them so easily.