Press Preferences

1. I ˈmust conˎfess| I don’t ˋbuy a ˌnewspaper ˌevery ˌday.|| When I ˈdo ˈbuy ˏone,| it ˈtends to be The ˎGuardian.|| It’s ˈwell ͵written,| and it ˈdoesn’t have a preˈdictable poˈlitical ˋbias.|| It ˈalso has a ˎcrossword| that is eˎxactly| the ˈright ˈlevel of ˎdifficulty for ˌme.||

2. I ˈget The Indeˎpendent every ˎday,| and The Obˈserver on ˎSundays.|| They are the ˈonly ˈnewspapers I ˎtrust.|| ̅They ˈdon’t have the ˈobvious poˈlitical aˈffiliˎations| of ˈsome of the ˎother ˌdailies,| they seem ˋrelatively imˏpartial.|| They have ˈinteresting ˋsections.|| I ↘listen to the ˎnews| ˈall ˈday ˎlong,| →so| I ˈtend to like the ˋfeature sections of ͵newspapers| ˈrather than the ˈnews reˏporting.|| The ˈIndeˈpendent has ↑good ˎcoverage of the ˎarts| – ˈexhiˏbitions,| ˏshows,| ˏconcerts,| reˋviews.||

3. ̅I ˈget The ˋMail.|| It’s ˈpretty ˈlight-ˎweight| and ˎreadable.|| I ˈfind the ˎbroadˌsheets| a bit ˈtoo ˎwordy for me.|| The ˈMail has ˈarticles on ͵health,| ͵fashion,| ͵film stars,| ͵diets.|| I ˈdon’t like its ˎpolitics, howˌever.|| It’s a ˈreal ˈright-wing ˋrag.|| ˈAnti-ˏEurope,| ˈxeno͵phobic,| ˈhomoˏphobic.|| I ˎsometimes| ˌwonder ˌwhy I ˋbuy it.||

4. I’m a bit of a newspaper junkie. I read The Sun, The Mirror, The Times, and The Financial Times. I like to get a broad spectrum. The Sun tells me what’s happening to celebs. The Mirror presents the left-wing conscience. The Times has some good features. And The Financial Times helps me with my investment portfolio.

5. I get The International Herald Tribune. It provides a good viewpoint of foreign affairs around the world. And it keeps me in touch with the States. I also get to find out what’s happening in Major League Baseball, and see how my team the Jankees are faring.

4. Listen to the dialogue. Lay stress-tone marks. Practice reading and reciting it. Transcribe the sentence in italics.

(Headway Pron. Interm. P. 38)

A Are all your friends from university working now?

B Nearly. Kirsty’s doing research work at Birmingham University and Shirly’s gone to work as a nurse somewhere in Burma.

A Really? That’s adventurous. What about Pearl?

B Oh, Pearl’s a civil servant now. She and Kirk live in a suburb somewhere.

A And how about Dirk?

B Oh, haven’t you heard about Dirk? He’s working in Turkey as a windsurf instructor! He’s learnt Turkish and he’s earning a fortune… or so I’ve heard.

5. Read the following passage. Lay stress-tone marks according to the rules of syntagmatic division. Explain how and why you’ve used the rising or falling tones.

American Press (Spotlight, p. 185)

The total number of daily newspapers in the United States is shrinking. There are several reasons for this trend. The movement of people from cities to suburbs led to the demise of some city dailies and creation of weekly suburban newspapers that emphasized local community happenings and drew revenues from local advertisers. And members of busy household in which both husband and wife worked found they had less time to read and often stopped buying an afternoon newspaper. But the most important reason was probably the growing popularity of television.

Since newspapers cannot report the news as quickly as radio and television many papers have changed their emphasis, concentrating on features, personality profiles and in-depth news analysis rather than fast breaking headline stories.

6. Listen to the short speech. Pay attention to different scales used on this text and name their types. Practice reading it and learn it by heart. Recite it in front of your group-mates, as if you were the speaker herself.

(New Headway adv. P. 135)