OPERATIONAL NEWS TEXTS

The core of these texts is news, that is, a message containing information previously unknown to the audience. The essence of any news forms a fact - something that took place in time and space. The fact is invariant, and the statement, its interpretation is variable. Talk about the scale, validity, stress of the fact is meaningless: its perception depends on the nature of the message and on the level of the audience, on its interests (social, ethical, age, professional). Therefore, the fundamental task of any media is to provide the most representative flow of information that satisfies the needs of the audience. From this stream the reader, listener, viewer will choose for himself what he is interested in at the moment. The most important requirements for the information message:

• efficiency;
• relevance - compliance with the interests of the audience; actual accuracy;
• decodability - understandable for the audience the essence of the message;
• purity of essential information from "noise" (additional information, details and details, distracting from the meaning of the main topic);
• conciseness of information.

All these requirements are met by the leading news media news text - a note. Its genre originality is expressed in the maximum localization of space-time coordinates. The note bears in itself a classical trinity: all the facts in it (it is assumed that they are) are united by one theme, the one-stage state of the processes occurring in reality is fixed, and the place of action is precisely indicated. Ideally, all three components of a note are concentrated in two or three phrases opening the text. Such a beginning in a note is called a lead. The lead is the factual basis of the note, its semantic center, which defines the structure of the text: having stated the essence of the fact, the reporter then expands the information field of the material, complementing it with new information - numbers, quotations, references to the sources of the information received. Often they say about the protocol impassivity of a note, about its unconditional, initial objectivity. But no matter how accurate and truthful the material is, it is in any case subjective, for, firstly, it proposes a fact extracted from reality (and, therefore, already received a subjective preference of the author and editor), and secondly, to maintain absolute objectivity in the statement of the fact, even in the genre of notes is almost impossible.

Here is a typical example. “Novye Izvestiya” in the note “The inscriptions on the Reichstag will be preserved for history” write:

Moscow drew attention to the decision of the leadership of the German Bundestag to perpetuate on the inner walls of the building of the former Reichstag inscriptions that Soviet soldiers left in May 1945. According to the message of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, transmitted to Interfax, “the inscriptions preserved on the walls of the Reichstag are a part of our common history, a reminder of how long, tragic and filled with tremendous sacrifices was the path to peace, good neighborliness and cooperation of the continent’s states. April 19, 1999 in Berlin, the grand opening after the reconstruction of the building of the former Reichstag, in which the German parliament will work, took place.

It is easy to see that the text is a so-called direct pyramid, in which the central news - the discovery after the reconstruction of the building of the former Reichstag - is included in the very finale of the narrative. The emphasis is thus shifted to another part of the message: Berlin decided to keep the inscriptions made by Soviet soldiers in May, forty-five. Information about this is given with reference to the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, approvingly referring to the preservation of "part of our common history." Correspondence in the same issue of the newspaper “Reichstag will find a second life” compensates for the “tidiness” of the main news item. Accident? No, rather, a well-thought-out information operation - to hide a long-standing irritation with the fact that the “damned” Reichstag again became the parliamentary center of Germany, and at the same time preserve, as they say, a good face in a bad game — to express satisfaction with the preservation of historical inscriptions. Who then will accuse Russia of not even trying to maintain mutually beneficial partnership relations with one of the largest countries in Europe?

The author of the note is limited in revealing his own “me,” to the forefront in texts of this kind — in a short chronicle, in a detailed news report — a message of fact comes forward. However, the author is not indifferent to information - he is always felt both in the selection of facts, and in their grouping, and in the presentation. Purposefulness characteristic of journalistic texts, characteristic of the article. “Obligations to the IMF are fulfilled,” reads the title of a note published in St. Petersburg Vedomosti. In the semantic subtext of the title - the cry of the soul of the Russian government: the money is desperately needed, why the IMF is hesitating ?! This subtext is confirmed by the text:

“Russia has fulfilled 90 percent of its obligations to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank,” Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, who arrived in Vienna yesterday, said in a speech to the Russian embassy in Austria. According to S. Stepashin, the results of the work done by the government were even surprised by the head of the IMF mission, Gerard Belanger, who arrived in Moscow yesterday. “They came to Moscow with great distrust, but what they saw encouraged them,” the Russian Prime Minister said.

Outwardly very simple material, and how rich it is with additional information, typical of any very mean word chronicle. Note - a convenient form of news distribution, positive and negative. Russia of the 1990s craves stabilization. The note by the lips of the then prime minister confirms: there is stabilization, the government is working successfully. The Prime Minister reports this to the staff of the Russian Embassy in Vienna. The audience is small, but the information from here goes to the whole world. Messages of this kind have a negative effect: the more active official sources reassure people, the more distrustful he is about assurances. 1998–99 passed under the sign of a loan from Russia to the IMF: will they give - will they not give? The government really wants to give, I want to look decent in the eyes of fellow citizens! Hence the over-optimistic tone.

Well, as theorists say, you need not only to see interesting facts - it is important to be able to submit them. The ability to see the essence of the phenomenon behind the incident is evidence not only of the skill of the publicist, but also of the skill of perception of the note by the audience who can read between the lines. A long-standing dispute - whether news information is journalism — is meaningless: any message published in the media, designed for a certain audience perception and bearing the stamp of the author’s personality is publicist.