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1.2. Main newspaper genres. Information and evaluation co-exist in the modern English newspaper. In fact, all kinds of newspaper writing are to a lesser or greater degree, both informative and evaluative. But, of course, it is obvious that in most of the basic newspaper genres one of the two functions prevails. Since the primary function of newspaper is to impart information the English newspaper mainly conveys it through the medium of the following newspaper genres:

1. 
   news reports,
   
2. 
   brief news items and communiqués,
   
3. 
   press reports ( parliamentary, of court proceedings, etc.),
   
4. 
   advertisements and announcements.
   

The newspaper also seeks to influence public opinion on political and other matters, so, apart from providing information about the subject-matter, certain newspaper genres carry a considerable amount of appraisal, assessment, evaluation, thus demonstrating a subjective handling of facts and events. The principal vehicle of interpretation and appraisal are the following newspaper genres:

1. 
   feature articles,
   
2. 
   editorials,
   
3. 
   leading articles, or leaders
   
4. 
   newspaper articles in opinion columns.
   

1.3. Quality and popular newspapers in the British Press. There exist two main streams in the British press: big media which aims at keeping the readers informed of the state of affairs on the economic and political fronts and providing news and political opinions, and opinion media which has the function of manipulating public opinion, preventing public passions from running too high and obscuring the causes of the problems and difficulties besetting the readers. The national press of Great Britain falls into two categories known as popular press and quality press.
The popular newspapers, also called tabloids or yellow press, are mass-sale publications with huge circulations, mainly of a small page format. They concentrate upon sensational news, accounts of crimes, specialize in scandalous gossip overemphasis, flagrant distortion and fabrication of news, provide a lot of information about the private life of film stars, famous sportsmen, politicians etc., playing on people’s emotions and appealing to the lowest level of public tastes.
Serious news is given in a compressed form, in small type or suppressed altogether. Popular newspapers use gigantic headlines and give much space to full-page arresting pictures etc. The swaggering style and the shouted phrase are characteristic features of their language, especially of their leaders and headlines.