Newspaper coverage of world events is presented as the unbiased recording of `hard facts`. In a study of the British press, Roger Fowler challenges this perception, arguing that news is a practice, constructed by the social and political world.

Acknowledgements Xl1 Introduction: the importance of language in thenews 12 The social construction of news 10Bias or representation 10News values 12Stereotypes 17Social and economic Jactors in news selection 193 Language and representation 25The linguistic background 26Anthropological linguistics: language, culture and thought 28Functional linguistics, variation, social semiotic 32Social semiotic in news discourse: an example 38Discourse and the reader 414 Conversation and consensus 46The 'public idiom' and the Jormation oj consensus 46Consensus and contradiction 48Categorization and conversation 54Oral models in the Press 595 Analytic tools: critical linguistics 66Linguistic tools 68Transitivity 70Some syntactic transformations oj the clause 76Lexical structure 80Interpersonal elements: modality 85Interpersonal elements: speech acts 87Copyrighted Material x Contents6 Discrimination in discourse: gender and power 91Personalization 91Discrimination 93Discrimination and power 1057 Terms of abuse and of endearment 110Rambo and the mad dog 112Postscript 1198 Attitudes to power 120Ideological roles of the Press 120The dominance of the status quo: hospital patients aspowerless 124~w~o. 1~9 A Press scare: the salmonella-in-eggs affair 146Press hysteria 146Participants 151Chronology 153Some aspects of hysterical style 16010 The salmonella-in-eggs affair: Pandora's box 170What am I? 170Pandora's box: generating and equating new instances 174'What am P' revisited 178Closing Pandora's box: what are you going to do about~? 181Blame the housewife 186The persistence of paradigms 20211 Leading the people: editorial authority 20812 Conclusion: prospects for critical news analysis 222Notes 235Index