1 Introduction: the importance of language in the news; 2 The social construction of news; Bias or representation; News values; Stereotypes; Social and economic factors in news selection; 3 Language and representation; The linguistic background; Anthropologial linguistics: language culture and thought; Functional linguistics, variation, social semiotic; Social semiotic in news discourse: an example; Discourse and the reader; 4 Conversation and consensus. The 'public idiom' and the formation of consensusConsensus and contradiction; Categorization and conversation; Oral models in the Press; 5 Analytic tools: critical linguistics; Linguistic tools; Transitivity; Some syntactic transformations of the clause; Lexical structure; Interpersonal elements: modality; Interpersonal elements: speech acts; 6 Discrimination in discourse: gender and power; Personalization; Discrimination; Discrimination and power; 7 Terms of abuse and of endearment; Rambo and the mad dog; Postscript; 8 Attitudes to power; Ideologial roles of the Press. The dominance of the status quo: hospital patients as powerlessLaw and order; 9 A Press scare: the salmonella-in-eggs affair; Press hysteria; Participants; Chronology; Some aspects of hysterical style; 10 The salmonella-in-eggs affair: Pandora's box; What am I?; Pandora's box: generating and equating new instances; 'What am I?' revisited; Closing pandora's box: what are you going to do about it?; Blame the housewife; The persistence of paradigms; 11 Leading the people: editorial authority; 12 Conclusion: prospects for critical news analysis