So far we explored some differences in style between Daily Mail and the I by looking mainly at headlines, phrasing and themes.

Today we will discuss some general rules of content and style that apply to almost all newspapers and have a closer look at introductory paragraphs.

The most central rule of news reporting is the rule of 5 Ws:

each article needs to answer Who? What? Where? When? Why? and sometimes How?

Some (but not all) of these questions are usually answered in the first paragraph [especially who and what]

We use short sentences , active voice (not what is done by someone, but who is doing what) and simple, clear language.

We avoid too many adjectives and embellishments. Our goal is to say as many facts as possible with as few words a possible.

Let’s see a few examples

can you guess which is Daily Mail and which is I?

see above: Who> Rishi Sunak What> Pleaded for Peace When> last night

Who> at least two police forces where> outside London what> were monitoring plans by a far-right group and here comes an extra: how>using TikTok when>yesterday/regarding events on Armistice day

can you find the W’s answered in the following two extracts? Can you spot an exception to a syntactical rule mentioned at the beginning of this post?