Genre classifications: different traditions

A Story Topic and Form

Each printed medium has got its own set of genres and this set makes its profile not less distinctive than its topical and thematic organization. Genres represent speech behaviour of a printed medium. It may deal with this or that topic in a different format and mould it in a different genre thus changing the whole content drastically. Looking through the newspapers and reading on the same topic presented in various genres the reader can not but be surprised with the fact how differently the same topic is changed, transformed and interpreted in different genres. Thus discussing mass media genres we are to deal with both content and form issues.

Content consists of whatever the journalist assembles through a process of research and interviewing, that is all the facts, statistics, quotes that go into the stories etc. Current thematic range of newspapers can be considered within the following groups:

1) economy;

2) politics and defense;

3) legislation and human rights;

4) crime;

5) cultural issues, entertainment, sport

6) match and dispatch

Form (otherwise, the form of presentation) involves that which is called style, but also a judgment about the kind of story the editor (the journalist) chooses to present to his readers.

So, newspapers and magazines search for both: the best form of content representation and its topical organization.

For newspapers a story topic cannot pass through the editorial window if it doesn’t fit one of 6 editorial criteria, such as:

1) impact,

2) timeliness,

3) prominence,

4) proximity,

5) conflict,

6) bizarreness.

(See the list and its interpretation in: Melvin Mencher, News Reporting and Writing, Wm. Brown, 1981, pp. 70–74, and a similar list offered by Brian S. Brooks (et al.), News Reporting and Writing, St. Martin’s Press, 1980.

As for magazines, their editors can employ the same criteria but to a certain degree as it is considered that magazine readers want to be entertained and informed but that is not of primary importance. They expect to be informed on the possible decisions their problems and made more skillful in their hobbies and jobs. The same goes for weekend issues of daily newspapers and in particular for their supplements. Magazine journalism has nothing to do with self-destruct journalism, which may be fine for swashbuckling metropolitan daily of the old school. As J. T. W. Hubbard puts it "it has impact (violence, blood), conflict (murder), proximity (our city), and timeliness (today, now)" (p. 8). There is one within magazine journalism that can submit these criteria of journalistic value and that is just to be interesting.

Genre as a Matter of Content and Form

Indeed, genre is neither content nor form. It is both. "The concept becomes clearer, – writes J.T.W.Hubbard in his book Magazine editing for professionals (Suracuse Univ. Press, 1989. P.19) – if we think of the neutral facts being poured into a mold. When the material is tapped out of the mold, it may be in the form of a "how to" article, or in the form of a personality profile". The author points out four kinds of article forms, which are characteristic of magazine writing. They are

1) service (or how to) article;

2) human interest;

3) informative-news;

4) personality profile.

As the initial letters form the word SHIP, one may call it the SHIP genre classification. As for newspaper writing the set of genres is quite different. The informative news material takes the central place which may include such particular genre forms as interview, report, reportage, obituary, etc. For both magazines and newspapers also editorials are of special importance. So, let us consider some of the forms mentioned above.

Service pieces are the stories on how to plan an orchard, to repair a car, or do any kind of housework.

Human interest pieces include stories about some unknown farmer, teacher or anyone in some unusual situation or vice versa (some well-known person in an ordinary situation).

Informative-news articles retell information and have no other purpose than to enrich the life and the knowledge of the reader. Each newspaper considers the diversity of informative news. This diversity may be enriched by specifically picturesque texts (as descriptions of events and scenes and everyday life may be in their focus), or funny stories (that of an anecdote nature), just as anniversaries (big events, inventions, discoveries), an element of nostalgia being handled in the latter. Here there may also be the so called ‘society feature’, perhaps from an analytical angle, as for example, new trends in society and in people’s behavior (cannot it be a piece of news?). Besides, within the genre of informative news articles there may be the material on new publications (books, films are for sure the sources of such articles), and what not.

Personality profile is a piece about somebody. The person may be famous or may be not. In general the profile deals with little things about big people or big things about ordinary people.

Interview is one of the oldest genres of journalism but it has greatly developed since the times it started to be used. In English-speaking countries interview as a form has almost disappeared (starting to be rather a source of a newspaper material than its form). And this source is heavily used in such a form of journalist writings as reporting. What is also important in this tradition is that a preference is given to the so-called asymmetric forms of interview presentation when, for example, the words of an interviewee are just citied in the reporter’s text (or vice versa, we may encounter interviewee’s narratives without any journalist interruption, comment or whatever).

Editorial

Editorial is a very special genre of printed mass media. Editorial gives a newspaper a character of its own (apart from the news it reports). This genre serves to establish a relationship between a particular printed medium and the community it serves. It is more like a piece of interpersonal communication than that of mass media.

What makes the editorial page different from the other pages is opinion. As Malcolm F. Mallette says, "it is as important to keep editorial opinion from being replaced by news as it is to keep editorializing out of the news columns. And editorial should say something. It should take a line. Preferably a distinctive line, consistent with the papers’ character, even conscience". (Handbook for journalists of Central and Eastern Europe, World Press Freedom Committee, 1990, p. 69).

Editorial may seem personal but at the same time it is definitely the voice (the opinion) of the newspaper. Being an institution the newspaper should develop (if it hasn’t done so yet) a personality as distinctive and interesting as that of a human being or a country.

From the topical point of view editorials are various: they may be within but not limited to political subjects, business, economy, finance, crime or whatever else. There may be also the so-called "humorous editorials" thus extending speech behavior patterns of a particular newspaper or magazine. They may get people talking or just thinking or educate the editor by the reaction they prompt. Editorials are open texts involving the readers into real communication.

The editor writing and the editorial page as a whole is a kind of a newspaper summit. But of no less importance is a reporter himself/herself. Apart from mere reporting s\he may be an influential force in lobbing some ideas in the public scene.