MH370 and MH17 airplane catastrophes: Reporting verbs in Malaysian online newspaper articles
Reporting verbs are important in news articles on controversial events or issues because of the need to present the attitude of news sources towards the topic or even to indicate the journalist’s attitudes towards information cited in the articles. The study investigated the use of reporting verbs i...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
UNIMAS Publisher
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/38444/5/Ting.pdf http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/38444/ https://publisher.unimas.my/ojs/index.php/TUR/article/view/3998 |
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| Summary: | Reporting verbs are important in news articles on controversial events or issues because of the need to present the attitude of news sources towards the topic or even to indicate the journalist’s attitudes towards information cited in the articles. The study investigated the use of reporting verbs in news articles on MH370 and MH17 airplane catastrophes in online English newspapers published in Malaysia. A total of 80 news articles on MH370 and MH17 from two online English-language, New Straits Time and The Star, were analysed for the author’s stance and writer’s stance using Thompson and Ye’s (1991) framework on reporting verbs. The analysis identified 931 instances of reporting verbs (91.75%, author’s stance; 8.25%, writer’s stance). For the author’s stance, 91.75% of the articles on MH370 and MH17 were reported positively using mainly the verb “said”, and the various news sources were stated clearly. New Straits Time reported MH17 more positively than MH370 but the pattern was the opposite for The Star. The neutral author’s stance was hardly used. There was no negative author’s stance for MH370 articles in both newspapers. As for the writer’s stance, counter-factive (42.51%) and non-factive (47.90%) reporting dominated. Articles on the disappearance of MH370 had more non-factive reporting verbs than counter-factive reporting verbs in both newspapers but for the MH17 articles, New Straits Time leaned towards a counter-factive writer’s stance, suggesting more critical reporting. The study showed that the articles on airplane catastrophes reflected safe reporting, often affirming the validity of statements from news sources. |
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