Une nation de lecteurs papiers (document en anglais)

A NATION OF PAPER READERS

I ) Broadsheets and Tabloids

16 million people in Britain buy one or several copies of a morning paper every day and many Britons spend a long tie every sunday reading their favourite sunday papers.

British newspaper, daily or sunday ones, can be divided into two categories : the quality papers or broadsheets, which are large in size, and the popular press or tabloids, which are half size. Many people buy one broadsheet and one tabloids everyday.

The qualty papers deal with home and overseas news, and sports and cultural evets. They also ofter financial repors, travel news, and book and film reviews. Serious papers try to maintain a balance betwee freedom of the press an the journalistic code of ethics.

Today, the circulation of tabloids is twice as higth as that of quality papers.

In both types of papers, considerable space is devoted to ads, including classified ads : newspapers could not survive without adversing revenues.

As there is keen competition between papers, reports are constantly in search of scoops to raise their circulation figures

2 ) Why be a Journalist?

First, journalism has power : the power to destroy presidents, to save lives to create panic, grief, worry, joy faith and hope. Military leaders know this. radio and télévision stations are early targets during war.

Dictators control the media in order keep control.

Second, journalism is not boring profession. Journalists get to meet famous, important people. They get to travel all over the world. Journalists can get into plces the average person cannot. Every dy brings new challenges ans exciting possibilities

Finally, journalists are intimately in touch with the world aroud them. They are the eyes and the ears of the public. A journalist gets the best seats in the front of the theater of life.

3 ) An Art of Bad Taste : Tabloids

What makes a tabloids is content and above all stye.

Scndals, murder ans disasters get full coverage, but the boring detais of political and economic life just don't appear. Sport is reported very much from the British point of view. And there are lots of pictures, including hlf-naked sex-bombs. Tabloids dedicate most of their pages to gossiping about celebrities. Their "reserch" methods are totallt unethical : they will tap people's phones,follow them on holiday, and even break into their house in order to get a story.

But the content is only half the story; the real key to the tabloids is the style. Tabloids are written in a colloquial lanuage. They love slang, rude rhymes and puns. The story of two American women who were o overweight that they were each forced to pay for tw areoplane seats, for example, waaccompanied by the headline, "FLYING FATTIES FORCED TO PAY AT LAST!"

Why on earth does Britain which has the best press agencies and the highest journalistic standrds, consue these tabloids like chocolate? Maybe it is because we have enough news on the television, on the radio and in the quality newspaper.

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