Middle class tax squeeze

Toppling governments

seize power

overthrow

depose

topple

revolution

putsch

military takeover

coup

coup d'etat

bloodless coup

bloody coup

martial law

civilian rule

return to civilian rule

The military may seize power in a coup, coup d'etat, putsch or military takeover and impose martial law, or military control, on the country.

In a revolution, there is a sudden, often violent, change of regime involving ordinary people, political parties and usually the military.

In revolutions and military takeovers, the previous government is overthrown, deposed, or in media terms, toppled. A revolution or coup is bloodless if there is no fighting, and bloody if there is.

The military may promise a return or handover to civilian rule, or rule by non-military politicians, after a time.

 

For Chilean President Patricia Aylwin, it was a chance to heal old wounds. Aylwin who's a center-right Christian Democrat, once supported Allende's overthrow. But for General Augusta Pinochet, who toppled Allende and then seized power for 16 years, the ceremony was an affront.

The coup that deposed PresidentJean-Bertrand Aristide has left Haitians and their diplomats angry and frustrated with the United Nations.

But who would be the strongmen in a coup? Yakolev himself thinks admits an army putsch is unlikely.

About every ten year/, something sensational happens inTurkish politics. On the past three occasions that something has been a military takeover. This time change may come through the ballot box.

This so called coup d'etat was like a bad play with a second-rate cast. Some say it turned into a second Russian revolution, but I say history repeats itself- the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

It is unclear what has happened to the president, although reports from the area indicate that it was a bloodless coup.

Bur in fact martial law seems to have been replaced by equally severe laws limiting political and religious freedom.

The return to civilian rule, which begins with local government elections in December, is being carefully monitored by the current military government.

The League won a sweeping majority in elections two months ago, but the authorities have set no timetable for a handover to civilian rule.

 

Broken promises? This BBC broadcast was made at the time of the elections referred to in the last example above. Read it, complete the gaps with the expressions listed (one of them is used four times, one three times and the rest once each), and answer the questions.

a booth

b voting

c elections

d electoral

e seats

f exit polls

g martial law h coup

 

Burmese elections pass off peacefully

in one of the most closely watched ___________ (1) processes in recent years, Burmese people have gone to the polls in the first multi-party ____________(2) for 30 years. Although there was a great deal of intimidation and arrest of opposition figures by the military government in the run-up to today's ______________(3), the polling is reported to have passed offsmoothly and peacefully.

The _____________(4) had been promised by the military junta shortly after it seized

power in the bloody _____________(5) of 1988, and the Burmese military leader, General Saw Mauug, said at a voting ______________ (6) in Rangoon today, 'I have kept my promise.'

Although the general kept his word to hold _________________(7), the military government resorted to all sorts of repressive and restrictive methods in order to curb opposition campaigning and activities. Today's ________________ (8) trend, however,

suggests that those measures have failed to prevent the Burmese from exercising their right and expressing their view. According to reports from Rangoon, the turnout in today's _______________(9) was heavy, and there were no visible signs of military presence on the streets. Although ______________(10) has been lifted, the curfew remains in place. Informal __________________(11) taken by journalists, diplomats, and other observers suggest strong support for the opposition National League for Democracy, whose secretary general, Aung San Suu Kyi, along with two main opposition leaders are all under detention.

A total of 93 parties with more candidates took part in today's ______________(12), contending for 485 parliamentary ___________________ (13). Election results for Rangoon are expected to be announced in a few hours, but the official national tally will be announced in three weeks.

 

 

1. If someone intimidates you, they try to prevent you from doing what you want to do by t_ r_ _ t_ _ ing you.

2. Is it possible for events such as elections to 'pass off violently?

3. If you curb someone's activities, do you encourage them?

4. People under, or in, detention are in p _ _ _ _ n or under house arrest.

5. The tally is another word for the c _ _ _ _.

 

 

20. Unrest

social unrest

civil unrest

protest

demonstration

protester demonstrator

 

Where opposition to a regime is widespread, there may be periods of civil or social unrest with protests or demonstrations: groups of protesters and demonstrators marching through the streets perhaps silently, or perhaps chanting, or rhythmically shouting, slogans.

chant

slogan

 

 

 

Mugabe is taking no chances. With the threats of industrial and social unrest real, new water cannon and riot gear have been ordered for the police.

The star's entourage were said to be shocked that they had arrived in the West African country in the middle of a period of civil unrest, with student groups trying to overthrow the government.

Mr Jones said he did not know how the plans for the making of 'A Return to Africa' video would be affected.

In Romania, a relatively quiet day of demonstration erupted into noisy protest by hundreds of people chanting anti-government slogans in Bucharest's University Square.

 

21. Rioting and looting

clash

security forces

water cannon

rubber bullets

tear gas

 

If there are violent confrontations or clashes with the security forces, the police and / or army, they may try to break up the demonstration with:

batons, short heavy sticks used to beat people back in a ba-

 

baton

baton charge

disperse

break up a demonstration

riot

rioting

looting

curfew

state of emergency

 

 

ton charge,

rubber bullets: bullets made of rubber designed to hurt demonstrators,

water cannon: machines that produce high-powered jets of water, and tear gas: an unpleasant gas that causes irritation to the eyes and skin and forces people to go elsewhere, or disperse.

A violent demonstration may turn into a riot with fighting, stone-throwing, damage to vehicles and buildings and so on. Rioting may be accompanied by looting: breaking into shops or houses during a riot to steal things.

The government may impose a curfew, a period at night when people must stay indoors and keep off the streets. They may also declare a state of emergency, where normal laws are suspended and martial law imposed.

Algeria's military-backed rulers declared a state of emergency last night, the move followed two days of fighting between security forces and Moslem fundamentalists. All public demonstrations are banned and wide-raging powers are even likely to be used to close mosques.

In the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, a huge public meeting demanding immediate party-based elections is continuing despite one clash between riot police and demonstrators. Tear-gas was fired and riot police used batons to beat back two groups of demonstrators who seemed intent on heading towards the palace of King Eirendra.

I saw the police using, first of all, tear gas and a water cannon and later rubber bullets to try to break up the demonstration.

A curfew has been imposed in the Nicaraguan coastal town of Puerto Cabezas after widespread rioting and looting broke out on Thursday. Police and army units are patrolling the streets to prevent further violence.

 

Familiar scenarios. Put these sections from two BBC reports into the correct order for each report. (One report consists of two parts and the other of four. The first parts of each are d and e respectively.)

 

VIOLENT DEMONSTRATION IN JOHANNESBURG VIOLENT DEMONSTRATIONS IN KOREA

 

a The demonstrators are protesting against President Roh Tae-Woo’s newly formed Liberal Democratic Party which they have announced as dictatorial and undemocratic. A group of about 50 workers has come down from a crane at South Korea's largest shipyard at Ulsan, ending a thirteen day protest which brought work there to a standstill.

b When they ignored an order to disperse, the police opened fire with plastic bullets, and the demonstrators replied with stones and bottles At least 20 people were injured, some of them seriously.

c Riot police fired tear gas to disperse about 2000 students in the capital, Seoul, who were throwing firebombs and stones. Other clashes took place on university campuses in Seoul, and in at least two other cities.

d There have been violent clashes between police and demonstrators in the South African city

of Johannesburg. A crowd of about 1,000 gathered for a protest march which had been declared illegal. There have been more anti-government demonstrations by students and dissidents in South Korea despite a warning by the government that it would act immediately and decisively to crush protests. The Justice Minister Mr Lee Jong Nam earlier said the authorities would no longer hesitate to send in police to university campuses to disperse illegal demonstrations. He accused students of fanning social unrest.

 

22. Repressive measures

dissident

sedition

subversion

crush opposition

repression

clampdown

crackdown

human rights

abuses

death squads

hit squads

exile

self-imposed exile

 

Opponents to undemocratic regimes are dissidents.

Autocratic governments accuse opponents of sedition and subversion and may try to ruthlessly stop or crush opposition by various means in a clampdown or crackdown. This repression may involve human rights abuses such as censorship, house arrest, imprisonment without trial and torture.

Some regimes use death squads or hit squads, groups of professional assassins, perhaps from the army or police, to murder opponents.

Opponents may be ordered to leave the country, or exiled. Others may themselves choose to leave in self-imposed exile.

A few brave magazines continue to take the government to task. A few brave lawyers continue to represent the imprisoned dissidents, and to speak of human rights abuses.

Four other men who had been detained were charged with sedition allegedly aimed at procuring the overthrow of the government, and also charges of possessing banned literature.

The government has dropped charges against thirteen students who were arrested and accused of subversion after publishing a document critical of government policy.

An opposition leader has claimed that the country's president has no intention of moving away from one party rule and is preparing for a political clampdown.

After the massacres, widespread repression and military crackdown in the country two years ago, most western countries suspended aid and strongly criticised its rulers.

Protests have been called later today by human rights groups and relatives of 9,000 people who disappeared during the wave of repression known as the dirty war.

At the start of the civil war, when thousands of civilians were killed by military and rightist death squads, he went into exile forming an exile with leftist rebels. The exile ended three years ago when Ungo and other Social Democrat leaders returned to try to stimulate a negotiated settlement to El Salvador's civil war.

...two former policemen who say they were members of hit squads which murdered anti-apartheid campaigners.

Karamanlis is the architect of modern Greece. He returned home in 1974 after n years of self-imposed exile to pick up the pieces after the collapse of the seven-year military regime.

 

II. THE MEDIA

 

1. Types of media

media mass media print media electronic media news media

News and entertainment are communicated in a number of different ways, using different media.

The media include print media such as newspapers and magazines, and electronic media such as radio and television.

The word media is most often used to refer to the communication of news, and in this context means the same as news media.

Media and mass media are often used when discussing the power of rnodern communications.

Media can be singular or plural.

It is difficult for the media to cover the growing number of crises throughout the world.

You in the media are all part of a powerful industry. That power can be used destructively or constructively.

... impersonal contact through print media and television.

For the book's main character, withdrawal is the only means of escape from the crowd, from group-think, from the mass media.

The documentary should be required study for all students of mass-media communications, because it illustrates to perfection the way in which illustrations of man's inhumanity to man can mislead public opinion.

The White House has announced that they normally will not let any member of the news media report on what is going to be in the speech until the president actually delivers it.

Belief systems and older cultures expire under a weight of more or less trivial information conveyed by an all-pervasive electronic media.

 

Media partners . Look at the extracts and then complete the tasks by combining the word 'media' with the other words in the box below the numbered questions.

 

After waiting weeks for a day when it would get maximum media exposure, the Labour Party launched its new policies for industry on February 25th —just as the Gulf War got going.

 

The trial of Bruno Hauptmann for the 1932 kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh's baby attracted media attention unlike any seen before.

 

The government has been particularly annoyed at the involvement of the French state in what they are calling a hostile media campaign.

 

Black had set his heart on the 'News', which he saw as a key part of his plan to build a worldwide media empire.

 

The thought of a quiet ceremony and a small dinner party to follow is becoming more attractive to stars as they watch publicised marriages like Elizabeth Taylor's being transformed into a media circus.

 

The director of the campaign for the homeless said yesterday's government announcement is no substitute for a proper national housing policy. 'We were quite upset about the amount of attention this announcement was given, and the amount of media hype that went on around it. Actually there was no new money and it was not a new initiative!

Those people ought to be our priority. I don't think they would be best pleased to hear this domestic squabble about the leadership of the Conservative Party being hyped up by the media at this sort of time.

 

Reporters were kept away from the group when they arrived from Nairobi amid fears that any media coverage of the event might compromise their safety.

 

1. Find three expressions referring to what the media give or show if they talk about
something.

2. Find one expression for a very big media organisation, perhaps one containing
newspapers and TV stations.

3. Find one expression meaning excitement generated by the media not justified by
reality.

4. Find one expression meaning a period of coverage in different media organised to
change people's opinions about something or someone.

5. Find one expression showing disapproval describing an event dominated by the
presence of the media.

 

		exposure
	coverage		attention
hype		media		campaign
	circus		empire

LANGUAGE NOTE

The verbs corresponding to the noun hype are hype or hype up. Events can be hyped or hyped up by the media.

 

Media partners . Make combinations with 'media' from the box below and use them to complete the extracts. (In extract c, it's not possible to find the exact word.)

1. Find one expression meaning an expert on using the media.

2. Find one expression for an expert on the media as a business.

3. Find one expression meaning someone who gives their opinions using the media.

4. Find one expression for someone who reports on the media in the media.

5. Find three expressions for the head of a media organisation.

correspondent analyst guru tycoon media mogul pundit magnate

 

a Estimates by Browen Maddox, media ___________ at Kleinwort Benson Securities are that the company will lose more than $330 million this year.

b But it is not the economists and media _________ who matter. The people who have been driven to fury by the finance minister are those who have lost their livelihoods.

с ...another satellite network, Sky Television, owned by the media __________ Mr Rupert Murdoch.

d The Palace had claimed that Fergie had hired top media ___________ Sir Tim Bell to handle publicity on her behalf.

e For the past three years he had been chairman of Thames Television and had been due to retire shortly because of his ill-health. Our media ___________ , Torin Douglas, looks back at his career.

 

 

2. The press

press

quality press popular press tabloid press gutter press

tabloid broadsheet

circulation readership

circulation papers.

The press usually refers just to newspapers, but the term can be extended to include magazines. Newspapers are either tabloid, a format usually associated in the English-speaking world with the popular press, or broadsheet, associated with quality journalism. Tabloids are sometimes referred to as the gutter press by people who disapprove of them.

Tabloids often have very large circulations and even bigger readerships (total number of people reading them). Papers such as these are often referred to as mass

 

Yet reports in the so-called quality press and on television have blamed tabloid newspapers. Strange that the broadsheets fill acres of pages with Royal stories and television never misses a chance to show royal footage.

The tabloid newspapers — or gutter press as they're known in Britain — have always been a source of fascination to media watchers.

I wonder whether attacking our popular press is the liberal elite's way of acting out its own fear of the common people.

There are other stories in the papers - the mass circulation tabloids displaying their usual interest in sex and sensation.

Friday night television audiences and Saturday newspaper readerships are, apparently, lower than mid-week's.

With the Easter holiday upon us, the mass circulation paper, 'The Sun', focuses on a strike by French air traffic controllers. In typically robust fashion 'The Sun' headlines the story: FILTHY FRENCH SINK OUR HOLS.

 

Shock Horror Headlines. Some papers, especially tabloids, are famous for their headlines. Match these headline words to their meanings and then use them to complete the headlines below.

1 BID a unpleasant experience, usually lasting some time

2 BOOST b argument

3 DASH с attempt

4 ORDEAL d inquiry

5 PLEA e questioning by police or at an enquiry

6 PLEDGE f fast journey, often with an uncertain outcome

7 PROBE g emotional request

8 QUIZ h a period of waiting, perhaps by an ill person’s bedside or in protest at something

9 ROW i promise

10 VIGIL j increase in numbers or in confidence, morale or prospects

 

3. Programmes and people

broadcast

programme show

host a programme

host a show

disc jockey

DJ

host

 

 

Programmes on radio and television may be referred to formally as broadcasts; and they may be referred to informally as shows, especially in American English.

Programmes or shows on radio and television are often presented or hosted by a programme host. Popular music programmes are presented by disc jockeys or DJs.

 

 

Broadcast is a noun and a verb.

 

In an unsportsmanlike and provocative move, they have chosen to broadcast on the same frequency that we have been using for the past five years.

No lawyer representing the tobacco companies would be interviewed for this broadcast.

Groucho flourished in situations with no script at all. One enormous success was his hosting of a show called 'You Bet Your Life' which began in 1947 and ran for four years on radio and 11 on television.

An obsessed fan who sent poison-pen letters to TV presenter Michaela Strachan was yesterday found guilty of threatening to kill her. Clifford Jones, 42, sent 2,000 letters over a two-year period to the children's programme host, a Liverpool court was told.

Top DJs have taken over much of the ground that pop stars used to occupy.

 

 

anchor

anchorman

anchorwoman

anchorperson

anchor a news programme

front a news programme

newsreader

newscaster

report

reporter

correspondent

TV crew

news gatherer

 

broadcaster

 

News programmes may be hosted, fronted, or anchored by anchors famous in their own right, sometimes more famous than the people in the news. Variations of the noun anchor are shown on the left.

In more traditional news programmes, the news is re.ad by a newsreader or newscaster: newscaster is now a rather old-fashioned word.

Reporters and correspondents, or television journalists, make reports. They and the camera operators who go with them are news gatherers. Together they form TV crews.

Broadcasters are TV and radio organisations, the people working for them, or, more specifically, the professional media people who actually participate in programmes.

To me, newsreaders are just people who read the news. I've never believed in the TV personality cult.

On the BBC World Service the news men present the news as it is, and not the newscasters' view of it.

Sissons, solid performer, would make an excellent 'Newsnight''anchorman. Though he has fronted live television studio debates for Channel 4 in the past, he seems lost at the BBC.

We have just had this report from our correspondent in Belgrave, Jim Fish.

Television reporters would put on their gas masks on screen to point live at missile streaks in the sky.

The BBC has produced two hard-hitting videos in a bid to cut down the growing number of news gatherers killed or injured while on duty.

His temper finally cracked when he turned on a TV crew and shouted, ‘Leave me alone.’

Buerk said, ‘Reporters, correspondents and newscasters are not part of the mainstream which flows towards management. So none of our senior managers have been broadcasters, which is like having nobody at the top of the Royal Air Force who can fly.’

 

Naming of parts. Match these newspaper expressions to their descriptions, and then use the expressions to complete the extracts below.

1 obituary

2 gossip column

3 classified

4 home

5 masthead

6 banner headline

7 scoop

a small advertisements about films, plays, concerts, things for sale, and so on
b news about the country the paper is published in

с exclusive story, especially an exciting one d (often critical) stories about the social activities and private lives of famous people

e headline in extremely large print

f top of front page carrying the name of the paper g article about the life of someone who has recently died

 

1. The Sun’s ___________ is ‘Come Home Dad.’

2. The discovery of the Goebbels diaries was yet another Sunday Times___________ that left our rivals gasping.

3. ...The Observer's front page headline - under its new royal blue ________.

4. Among the__________ stories covered in British papers is the continuing legal row over the finances of the country's National Union of Mineworkers.

5. May I add a personal note to your excellent__________of Charles Abell? Throughout his career, he was faced with difficult problems but never hesitated to take firm decisions and to stand by the consequences.

6. MGN's move has been seen as part of an attempt to get its share of the regional newspapers' advertising cake – particularly ___________________- and other tabloid national papers are expected to follow.

 

7. Having failed at show business he ended up in journalism writing about it. By the mid-thirties he had his ____________. Broadway was his beat. Table 50 at New York's Stork Club was his office.

 

4. Gossip and the glitterati

celebrity

celeb

glitterati

beautiful people

jet set

 

Newspapers, especially tabloid newspapers, are often accused of taking an excessive interest in the private lives of famous people such as film stars: celebrities, or, very informally, celebs.

Celebrities are sometimes referred to slightly humorously, and perhaps critically, as glitterati. This expression has replaced beautiful people and jet set, reminiscent now of the 1960 s.

 

LANGUAGE NOTE

Glitterati has no singular form.

Are there enough celebrities in the world to sustain yet another chat show? Most of the celebs are very down to earth with backgrounds like mine.

Zermatt was fashionable with 'le jet-set' (Johnny Halliday, Sacha Distel, etc) in the Sixties which means that its idea of chic is nowadays very unobtrusive.

It started in NewYork with Studio 54, and what they do is get this elitist door policy where they pick and choose, you know, whoever they figure is (sic) a beautiful people.

Hong Kong's glitterati were downing buckets of champagne, puffing Cuban cigars and dancing their way through a night of opulence.

 

privacy

invasion of privacy

bгеach of privacy

intrusive

reporting

paparazzi

doorstepping

bug

bugging

Celebrities, as well as more ordinary people, complain about invasion of privacy or a breach of privacy when they feel their private lives are being examined too closely.

They complain about intrusive reporting techniques like the use of paparazzi, photographers with long-lens cameras who take pictures without the subject's knowledge or permission. Other intrusive methods include doorstepping, waiting outside someone's house or office with microphone and camera in order to question them, and secretly recording conversations by bugging rooms with hidden microphones, or bugs.

LANGUAGE N0TE

The singular of paparazzi is paparazzo. Doorstepping can also be spelt with a hyphen.

 

To hope that pictures like these would not appear is like trying to put a cap on an active volcano. The behaviour of the royal family is not just a matter of intense public curiosity, not in itself a justification for a breach of privacy, but is also of some public importance and concern.

It is bad enough to spy on her during a private early morning swim, but then to criticise her choice of swimwear for the occasion is the worst invasion of privacy imaginable.

They call on the government to consider the introduction of a privacy law to protect people from unjustly intrusive newspaper reporting.

Picture editors must also maintain relationships with the scores of British and foreign paparazzi who haunt showbusiness personalities and royalty, while courting the more respectable agencies or photographers who specialise in winning authorised access to film, television and pop stars.

Reporters and photographers crowded every exit from the Mirror building to cross-question Maxwell as he left. 'We are doorstepping our own chairman,'said a newsroom executive. 'Can you believe this?'

She was so frightened that she had her private rooms searched in case they were bugged.

 

Privacy and the paparazzi. Read this extract of a letter from a member of parliament to the editor of TheTimes and answer the questions.

 

MELLOR: THE RIGHT TO KNOW AND THE RIGHT TO STAY IN OFFICE

Sir,

As might be expected from a Press Complaints Commission which includes tabloid editors, it has now stated that the public have the right to be informed about the private behaviour of politicians if it affects the conduct of public business.

Was it therefore in the public interest for the tabloid editors to pay an 'electronics expert' who had bugged a bedroom then sold the tapes and photographs of it? Have we now reached the stage where it is easier for those who acquire other people's damaging personal secrets to sell them to the tabloids rather than risk jail over blackmail?

The statement amounts to a simple approval of the tabloids' use of paid informers, as, for example, did the KGB in Moscow or the Stasi in East Germany. Like them, the tabloids use such information to destroy lives without trial, defence or jury.

It endorses the practice of allowing a picket line of doorstepping journalists outside a house, to barricade relatives and children and cause them enormous distress, all in the interests of 'a good story'.

 

1. Why is electronics expert' in inverted commas?

a) the person doing the bugging didn't know much about electronics,

b) the person was less interested in electronics than in earning money by selling the secret recordings to newspapers,
c) you don't really know, but it might be a combination of a and b.

2. What sort of state employs large numbers of informers?
A p _ _ _ _ _ state.

3. If you endorse an activity, do you support it and approve of it?

4. Is this a picket line in a literal sense?

5. If someone barricades people into a house, do they let them leave?

6. If someone causes someone distress, do they upset them?

 

5. Suing for libel

libel

sue for libel

libel damages

libel action

actionable

writ

issue a writ

lawsuit

In some countries, you can take legal action and sue newspaper editors for invasion of privacy: different countries have different laws about what breaches of privacy are actionable.

You may also sue for libel in a libel action, if you think that you have been libelled: in other words, that something untrue, and that damages your reputation, has been written about you. When someone starts legal action for libel, they issue a libel writ.

In both cases, the objective of the lawsuit is financial compensation in the form of damages.

LANGUAGE NOTE

Libelled and libelling can be spelt libeled and libeling in American English. Lawsuit can be spelt with a hyphen or as two words.

Rod Stewart has won the first round in a -£15 million libel action against a newspaper which claimed he cheated on wife Rachel Hunter with her agreement. A judge in Los Angeles refused to drop the invasion of privacy part of the 47-year-old singer's lawsuit which claims the story is filled with 'baseless lies'. Attorneys for the Canadian tabloid 'News Extra' had argued the claim was without justification, because the lawsuit also alleges libel.

Germany: grosser invasions of privacy are widely actionable in the civil courts and there is a civil remedy for a newspaper publishing inaccurate personal information and refusing to correct it.

Each airline chief is suing the other for libel arising from accusations of alleged dirty tricks and smear tactics.

TV wine expert Jill Goolden won substantial libel damages in the High Court yesterday over allegations that her kitchen was filthy.

The Aga Khan has issued a writ for libel damages against Express newspapers and the Daily Express columnist Ross Benson over a gossip column story on the BCCI [Bank of Credit and Commerce International] collapse.

 

 

Privacy and the paparazzi 2. Read this article from Newsweek and use these words to complete the gaps. One of the words is used three times, two are used twice and the rest once each.

 

a lawsuits

b privacy

с paparazzi

d paparazzo

e photographers

f photography

g scoop

h celebrity

 

Stalking the Stars

...You can't see them. But they're there, lurking outside the hotels of Majorca, reconnoitering the beach clubs of the French Riviera, eavesdropping in ritzy restaurants from Madrid to Monte Carlo, hiding behind evergreens in St Moritz and palm trees in St Tropez.

Taking pictures is the least of their work, and many aren't even very good __________ (1). 'l have no talent for _________ (2)', admits Rostain, who together with Mouron nevertheless earns 1.5 million francs a year peddling snapshots of all the right people doing all the wrong things. ‘_________ (3) aren't supposed to do quality _______ (4), but to get exclusive documents.’

Real_____________ (5), that is - not celebrity ____________ (6), who work with the consent of their subjects, whether implicit or explicit. Real paparazzi are a rare breed: about a dozen each in France, Italy and Spain, fewer in Britain. Even so, the competition is cutthroat. To survive a __________ (7) must be intrepid, diligent, well-connected - and patient. A true ______________(8), such as the one that linked the Duchess of York to her financial adviser, takes weeks, sometimes months, of preparation. ...

If Rostain and Mouron manage to get the pictures they want, and if a celebrity chooses to sue, chances are that they will win. In France, a legal principle known as the droit a I'image (right of image) prohibits the publication of photographs without the explicit consent of the people in them, except in news situations where the photos have clear news content.

'I can't complain,' says Paris ___________ (9) lawyer Gilles Dreyfus, who is representing Brigitte Bardot in a suit against Void, which in Augustran clandestine photos of the reclusive star frolicking on a yacht in the company of a 51-year-old high-up in the far-right National Front party.'To my knowledge, French law is the strictest in the world.'As a result, Void faces

10 to 15 _________ (10) a year. In most cases, courts order publishers to pay damages ranging between 25,000 to 50,000 francs - a burden that Void, with sales of 200 million francs a year, can easily afford. 'It's a budget item,' says its editor in chief, Patrick Marescaux. ...

 

Some ____________(11) hope to penetrate the few remaining pockets of __________ (12). In France, for example, the personal lives of politicians are off-limits. 'It's a taboo,' says Paris-Match news editor Chris Lafaille. Rostain and Mouron hope to change that. They're trying to catch one prominent French politician with his mistress, they say. Getting the photos isn't easy, but the hard part is finding a periodical willing to run them.'If we succeed,'says Rostain, 'maybe we'll open up a whole new market.'

 

6. Gagging the press

gag

watchdog

toothless watchdog

censorship

statutory controls

crackdown

Governments that limit press freedom are accused of gagging the press. This may take the form a voluntary code of practice overseen by a body referred to informally as a watchdog. If the watchdog is ineffective, it is described as toothless.

 

clampdown

press freedom

freedom of the press

If this is not enough for the government, it may impose statutory (legally enforceable) controls. The authorities are then described as cracking down or clamping down on the press. They may also be accused of press censorship and of limiting press freedom or the freedom of the press.

 

 

 

LANGUAGE NOTE

The nouns corresponding to the verbs crack down and clamp down are crackdown and clampdown. Watchdog, crackdown and clampdown are also spelt with a hyphen.

The chances of a privacy law to gag the Press are now 'a lot less than they were a few days ago'.

'The state of the marriage has been put into the public domain in part at least by the outward behaviour of the partners. It is therefore a legitimate subject within the public interest for report and comment by the press! But the press watchdog criticised broadcasters for 'intrusive and speculative reports'.

The proposed watchdog will not be as toothless as doubters suggest.

Commons all-party media committee chairman Nicholas Winterton said the pictures appeared to be a 'flagrant breach of privacy' but should not prompt calls for a legal clampdown. But Lord St John of Fawsley said: 'It seems to me that it marks a further milestone on the way to introducing a general right of privacy which would benefit all citizens.'

...a whole succession of reactionary initiatives in relation to the freedom of the media, television and news agencies that have been cracked down on.

On privacy he is as opposed to press censorship as the newspapers.

The Times says that the proposals give the newspaper industry a 12-month deadline to put its house in order of face tough statutory controls. Many papers comment editorially that the proposals could damage press freedom.

Nobody ever said the freedom of the press was a freedom that would never be troublesome.

 

 

The Last Chance Saloon. This extract fromTheTtmes is about limiting press freedom to report on people's private lives. Read it and answer the questions.

Was it a hollow press victory?

As editor of Britain's biggest selling Sunday tabloid, Patsy Chapman is used to juicy tips about scandals involving politicians. But Chapman is also a member of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC, set up to ensure that editors observe the code of conduct drawn up last year after Fleet Street narrowly repelled legislation to curb the press over intrusion into private lives.

That was why she agonised when she was tipped off that David Mellor was having an affair with

an actress. Although the News of the World lives by scandal, Chapman has to be satisfied that its stories pass muster by the PCC code. And Mellor, after all, was the minister responsible for initiating any new press legislation.

When the story broke in The People last Sunday, there was already a widespread conviction in Fleet Street that John Major was in favour of new press laws, angered by reporting of the rift in the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Alarmed, Sir Nicholas Lloyd, the Fleet Street editor closest to Mr Major, published a leading article last Monday accusing The People of committing suicide. 'Its behaviour threatens all sections of the press, however responsible, by giving the most powerful ammunition to those demanding a crackdown on media freedom,' the Daily Express declared.

But other tabloid editors sniffed the reek of hypocrisy. The minister who had once warned editors that they were drinking in the Last Chance Saloon had, as The Sun cruelly put it, been playing the piano in the bordello next door.

So here was a minister for press intrusion who had something to hide and had desperately tried to hide it. If the government was seriously considering a new press bill, it was open to the accusation of trying to conceal the sins of its own ministers. It was Mr Major's most avid supporter, Kelvin Mackenzie, editor of The Sun, who delivered the killer blow.

On Tuesday he revealed that a prominent member of the cabinet had phoned his newspaper during the general election campaign with the names and addresses of three women whom he claimed were having affairs with Paddy Ashdown.

The allegations had been checked and found untrue. Mackenzie, by demonstrating that a minister had peddled a sexual scandal to The Sun, encouraging it to intrude into a rival politician's private life, a claim bolstered the next day by The Independent, effectively scuppered Major.

 

1. Look through the whole article and identify all the papers and editors mentioned. Who edits which paper?

2. Which is the biggest Sunday tabloid?

a) The People, b) The News of the World?

3. British national papers narrowly repelled, or only just succeeded in resisting, legislation to curb the press. If you curb something, do you give it a) less freedom or b) more freedom?

4. What noun already used in the article is 'tip off related to?

5. If something passes muster is it acceptable?

6. If there is a widespread conviction about something, do a lot of people believe it?

7. Was the Mellor story first published in the News of the World?

8. Who normally gets ammunition given to them?

9. If you sniff the reek of hypocrisy, you sense it: hypocritical people tell people to do one thing and do another thing themselves. What is the hypocrisy involved here?

10. What word is used here to mean the same as 'hide' earlier in the article?

11. If you are someone's avid supporter, do you support them strongly?

12. If you peddle information, are you keen for people to believe it?

13. If you bolster a claim, do you back it up?

14. If you scupper someone's plans you destroy them. Who scuppered Major's plans in this situation? What plans were scuppered?

7. Political correctness

political correctness

politically correct

politically incorrect

PC

speech code

Journalists and others such as university teachers are increasingly asked not to use certain words and expressions because they are politically incorrect and might cause offence, and to use other, politically correct, or PC, words. Where organisations such as universities have rules about words to be avoided in conversation and elsewhere, these rules constitute a speech code. Politically correct language is part of a wider phenomenon: politically correct thinking, or political correctness.

 

A set of attitudes has come to dominate the university campus which 'Newsweek'and other publications would call politically correct attitudes - that is to say one has to have a single attitude toward the Third World, the situation of women, etc. The Dartmouth Review feels that it's almost a duty to violate these very dubious assumptions that are being imposed as politically correct.

PC-things include ethnic pride (especially Afrocentrism), recyclable products, Malcolm X,

being 'gay'or even 'queer' (not homosexual), saying 'people of colour' (never coloured people),

'women' (not girls) and 'Ms' (not Mrs or Miss), sensitivity to unconscious racism, and 'diversity' in all things. Non-PC things include polystyrene cups, buying petrol from Exxon, saying 'businessmen'or 'congressmen' (as opposed to 'persons'), talking about dead white European male (DWEM) thinkers and writers (Plato to Proust).

Political correctness and the banning of words does not drive out prejudice: it merely hides it.

It reminds me of Kipling saying the loveliest sound in the world was 'deep-voiced men laughing together over dinner'. Nowadays remarks like that are deemed sexist, chauvinist, politically incorrect, and, for all I know, actionable.

 

Lexicographically correct or verbally challenged? Read this article about politically correct language from The Economist and answer the questions.

 

INDUSTRY

Something odd is happening to political correctness. On the one hand, it is thriving right up to the highest levels of government (witness the equally-sized Christmas tree and Chanukah memorial outside the White House) On the other hand its opponents are thriving too (look at the best seller lists, headed by Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern).

Seemingly irreconcilable arguments surround it. Some dismiss political correctness (PC) as an irrelevance hyped up by the right; others see it as a leftist danger to the very fabric of American life; still others argue that it is plain passé. Is America in the throes of neo-PC anti-PC or post-PC? It is hard to tell.

So much the better for the PC industry. For that is what political correctness has become. It is no Jonger a matter of who wins or loses the arguments. The arguments themselves are what sustain the industry. Competition in the PC industry is not only healthy, it is essential. Few industries can boast such rapid growth as this one. A computer search by the New York Times found 103 newspaper references to 'political correctness’ in 1988. In 1993 the number was roughly 10,000. Such extraordinary growth would quickly slacken if the driving force behind it - the language of political correctness - were to go out of fashion. But there seems little prospect of that happening. The current controversy over style at the Los Angeles Times shows that there is still plenty of fuel for the PC industry. The Los Angeles Times’s 19-page ‘Guide on Ethnic and Racial Identification', drafted by a committee, was sent to the paper's staff on November 10th.

Journalists are told never to use the word 'Jewess', but to remember to call a Latino woman a 'Latina'.

They are urged to avoid referring to African 'tribes' because this offends many blacks (who are more often African American'). 'Eskimos' disappear (they are 'not a homogenous group and may view the term Eskimo negatively'). 'Dutch treat' and 'Dutch courage' are offensive (to the Dutch?), as are French letters (to condom-makers?)

There is more. The term 'deaf and dumb', is, apparently, pejorative, much as 'birth defects' are best replaced by 'congenital disabilities'. Because many women do the job, 'letter carrier' is preferable to 'mailman'. 'Mankind' is frowned upon. 'Gringo', 'savages' and

'redskin' are among the words to be used only in quotes with the approval of the editor, associate editor and senior editor.

Not surprisingly, the guidelines provoked a reaction, and the controversy has become public. A memo signed by journalists at the Los Angeles Times's Washington bureau gives warning that it is a short step from 'shunning offensive words to shying away from painful facts and subjects'. All this is splendid for the PC industry (language fuss, for example, does wonders for the dictionary business).

 

1. Both PC and its opponents are thriving. Does this mean they are both doing a) well, or b) badly?

2. If something is a danger to the very fabric of something else, is it a) very dangerous, or b) not dangerous?

3. If you are in the throes of something, is it finished?

4. If X sustains Y, does X keep Y going?

5. If something boasts a characteristic, it possesses it. Is it possible for something to boast an unimperative characteristic?

6. If the rate of something such as growth slackens does it a) speed up, or b) slow down?

7. An example of a Dutch treat is going to a restaurant with someone and splitting the bill equally. Dutch courage is the courage people get from drinking alcohol. If you were Dutch, would you be offended by these expressions?

8. Pejorative expressions are not approved of, or frowned upon, because they are critical or insulting. Why is ‘mankind’ frowned upon?

9. If you shun something or shy away from something, do you like discussing it?

10. If there is fuss about something, are people nervous and anxious about it?

EXTENSIVE READING

 

I. Read and discuss.

It’s high time men ceased to regard women as second class citizens

 

This is supposed to be an enlightened age, but you wouldn’t think so if you could hear what the average man thinks of the average woman. Women won their independence years ago. After a long, bitter struggle, they now enjoy the same educational opportunities as men in most parts of the world. They have proved repeatedly that they are equal and often superior to men in almost every field. The hard-fought battle for recognition has been won, but it is by no means over. It is men, not women who still carry on the sex war because their attitude remains basically hostile. Even in the most progressive societies, women continue to be regarded as second-rate citizens.

On the surface, the comments made by men about women’s abilities seem light-hearted. The same tired jokes about women drivers are repeated day in, day out. This apparent light-heartedness does not conceal the real contempt that men feel for women. However much men sneer at women, their claims to superiority are not borne out by statistics. Let’s consider the matter of driving, for instance. We all know that women cause far fewer accidents than men. They are too conscientious and responsible to drive like maniacs. Moreover, women have succeeded in any job you care to name. As politicians, soldiers, doctors, factory-hands, university professors, farmers, company directors, lawyers, bus-conductors, scientists and presidents of countries they have often put men to shame. And we must remember that they frequently succeed brilliantly in all these fields in addition to bearing and rearing children.

Yet men go on maintaining the fiction that there are many jobs that women can’t do. Top-level political negotiations between countries, business and banking are entirely controlled by men, who jealously guard their so-called “rights”. The arguments that men put forward to exclude women from these fields are all too familiar. Women, they say, are unreliable and irrational. They depend too little on cool reasoning and too much on intuition and instinct to arrive at decisions. They are not even capable of thinking clearly. Yet when women prove their abilities, men refuse to acknowledge them and give them their due.

The truth is that men cling to their supremacy because of their basic inferiority complex. They just know in their hearts that women are superior and they are afraid at being beaten at their own game. One of the most important tasks in the world is to achieve peace between nations. You can be sure that if women were allowed to sit round the conference table, they would succeed brilliantly, as they always do, where men have failed for centuries. Some things are too important to be left to men!

The argument: key words

1. Supposed to be enlightened age: not really so.

2. Women won independence years ago.

3. Long struggle: equal educational opportunities as men.

4. Proved repeatedly: equal, often superior to men in every field.

5. Battle not over: men carry on sex war; basically hostile.

6. Even in progressive societies: women second-rate citizens; different species.

7. Light-hearted comments made by men: e.g. women drivers.

8. Does not conceal real contempt; but statistics disprove their claims.

9. Take driving: women: fewer accidents; responsible drivers; not maniacs.

10. Success in any job: politicians, etc. – bear and rear children as well.

11. Men maintain fiction: women can’t do certain jobs.

12. E.g. top-level political negotiation, banking, no vote in certain countries.

13. Why? Familiar arguments: women unreliable, irrational, depend on instinct, intuition.

14. Men refuse to acknowledge proven ability. Clear thinking?

15. Men cling to supremacy: inferiority complex.

16. Shun competition; may be beaten.

17. Most important task: world peace.

18. Success if negotiations by women; some things too important to be done by men.

The counter-argument: key words

1. Women: militant, shout louder because they have weak case.

2. Even now, they still talk like suffragettes.

3. It’s nonsense to claim that men and women are equal and have the same abilities.

4. Women: different biological function; physically weaker; different, not inferior, intellectually.

5. Impossible to be wives, mothers and successful career women.

6. Really are unreliable: employers can’t trust them. Not their fault: leave jobs to get married, have children.

7. Great deal of truth in light-hearted jokes: e.g. women drivers. Women: less practical, less mechanically minded.

8. Most women glad to let men look after important affairs.

9. They know that bearing and rearing children are more important.

10. That’s why there are few women in politics, etc. They are not excluded; they exclude themselves.

11. Anyway, we live in women-dominated societies: e.g. USA, Western Europe.

12. Who is the real boss in the average household? Certainly not father!

13. Men are second-class citizens and women should grant them equal status!

 

II. Read and discuss.

Women MPs bullied and abused in Commons

Jackie Ashley

The most comprehensive survey of female MPs ever conducted has revealed the reactionary attitudes to women held by many MPs in the British Parliament. Based on interviews with 83 current and recent MPs, it contains some frank comments about certain male MPs making sexist remarks and gestures as women try to speak in the Commons.

The study, Whose Secretary Are You, Minister? was overseen by Professor Joni Lovenduski of Birkbeck College, London, and Margaret Moran MP. They gathered more than 100 hours of taped interviews, to be placed in the British Library.

When Gillian Shephard arrived in the House of Commons as a new Tory MP in 1987 she was confused to find herself and her fellow women MPs being called Betty. “There was a Conservative MP who called us all Betty,” she recalls, “and when I said, ‘Look, you know my name isn’t Betty’, he said, ‘Ah, but you’re all the same, so I call you all Betty, it’s easier’.” Barbara Follett says: “I remember some Conservatives whenever a Labour woman got up to speak taking their breasts - their imaginary breasts - in their hands and wiggle them and say ‘melons’ as we spoke.” When scores of female MPs - 120 in all - arrived in the Commons in 1997, Labour’s Claire Curtis-Thomas assumed that the red ribbons tied to coat hangers were for Aids day, only to be told they were for members to hang up their swords.

Another new MP, Yvette Cooper, found it hard to persuade Commons officials that she was not a researcher or secretary. Jackie Ballard, a Liberal Democrat who left parliament at the last election, cites a leading Tory MP who kept up a stream of remarks just out of hearing of the Speaker, “maybe about someone’s legs or someone being a lesbian . . . if he worked for me he’d probably be sacked”. The same MP is reported as announcing, while drunk in the chamber, that he’d like to “make love to” a nearby woman. The interviews show how even after the arrival of the “Blair babes”, female MPs were expected to stick to “women’s issues”, such as health and education. Several complain of the put-downs they experienced when stepping on to traditionally male territory. When Labour’s Dari Taylor resigned from the defence select committee - one of only two women on it - the chairman, Bruce George, stood up and said: “Well, I have to make this announcement: one down, one to go.”

The hostility from some male MPs was astonishing. Even those who publicly espoused equality were furious to see women getting promotion. One current member of the cabinet was asked, when she was promoted: “Oh, you’ve had a very fast rise, who have you been sleeping with?” Male MPs and officials seemed reluctant to accept the new Labour women, many of them in their 30s and 40s. Some simply could not believe that youngish women could be members of parliament.

Many female MPs say the introduction of “family friendly” hours have improved things, undermining the old male drinking culture. But it isn’t perfect yet. Sarah Teather, the new Liberal Democrat MP, says: “Lots of people say it’s like an old boys’ club. I’ve always said, to me it feels rather more like a teenage public school* -- you know, a public school full of teenage boys.” Worse than all the sexism and the mockery, women MPs are angry that their achievements are not recognised. They insist that they have brought a new feminised agenda to Westminster politics, in particular, the rise of childcare to the top of the domestic agenda. Many other policies are cited too. Marion Roe, a Tory MP, is proud of her bill outlawing female circumcision in 1985 -- “when I did that, nobody knew what female circumcision was”. Ruth Kelly cites parental leave, while Teresa Gorman says bluntly: “I put menopause on the map.”

 

1. Fill the gaps using these key words from the text:

oversee put-down resign espouse wiggle (vb) mockery outlaw (vb) promotion

1. If you ____________ a cause, you support it actively.

2. If you ____________ something, you move it rapidly from side to side.

3. A ____________ is a critical remark intended to make another person feel bad.

4. ____________ is the process of ridiculing the actions of other people.

5. If you ____________ something, you supervise it on an official basis.

6. If you ____________ from a job or a position, you quit that job or position.

7. If something is ____________ it is prohibited.

8. If you get a ____________, you get a better job or position within an organisation.

 

2. Answer the questions.

1. What is the name of the lower chamber of the British Parliament?

2. What are British members of parliament usually known as?

3. What are the three main parties in the British Parliament?

4. What is another word for Conservative?

5. Who are or were the ‘Blair babes’?

6. Who chairs the debates in the British Parliament?

 

3. Find the verbs that collocate with these nouns or noun phrases:

1. to ____________ a survey

2. to ____________ an attitude or a view

3. to ____________ promotion

4. to ____________ an achievement

5. to ____________ a remark

6. to ____________ a put-down

7. to ____________ an announcement

8. to ____________ something on the map

 

4. Find the adjectives in the text that mean:

1. complete

2. resistant to change

3. extremely surprising

4. very angry

5. unwilling

6. open and honest

7. showing prejudice against the opposite sex

8. honoured

 

5. Discussion points.

How does this compare with the situation in Russia?

Do we have women MPs?

Are there more male or female MPs?

Do you think positive discrimination to try to attract more female MPs is a good thing?

 

III. Read and discuss.

From ‘civilisation’ to ‘WMD’, words are weapons

Simon Tisdall

Second World War posters warning that “careless talk costs lives” represented a lasting truth. Then the fear was that spies might overhear conversations of value to the Nazis. The equivalent US slogan was “loose lips sink ships”. Sixty years on, in another era of conflict, the careless talk comes more often from politicians - but it is potentially just as deadly. When George Bush, soon after September 11, referred to a “crusade” against al - Qaida, he helped persuade Muslims that they were under renewed attack from Richard the Lionheart in a US navy bomber jacket. In the context of a potential “clash of civilisations “, Bush’s loose use of language was not only insensitive. It was unthinkingly reckless.

Bush has avoided the word “crusade” ever since. But he still regularly talks about the need to defend “civilisation” and “the civilised world” against “dark forces”. He never quite says which part of the planet is the “uncivilised” or “dark” bit. Perhaps he means Kandahar in Afghanistan or Eastbourne in England. It is unclear. But the unspoken implication is deeply divisive, even racist, not to say insulting.

Words can define how a people sees itself: t