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Dara Miller
Dr. Sirles
ENG 408
10 May 2013
In both pieces from Newsweek, Look Ma! Were Fashion Moguls! and Time
for a Royal Wedding, marked departures from a purely journalistic style are clear. These
pieces are not editorials or columns, but the news they cover does contain overt elements
of opinion. These types of pieces often cover soft news, but within their coverage they
allow for the juxtaposition of feel-good fluff with connections to harsher realities as well.
This characteristic, combined with the stylistic features described below, creates a
register we can label newmagazine-ese.
Characteristics of Newsmagazine-ese
Field of Discourse: Texts that fall into the category of newsmagazine-ese typically
focus on social issues, politics, or other items of interest within popular culture. These
texts address topics and issues that are always current, but not necessarily hard-hitting.
Look Ma, Were Fashion Moguls! traces the development of two former child stars
into high-style designers; it is not news, but it is of interest within pop culture. Time for
a Royal Wedding analyzes current issues within Britains political system as it related to
the current news about the Royal Wedding.
Mode of Discourse: A newsmagazine text is generally written in a speakers voice, with
frequent use of current slang and colloquialisms. Sentence length is not overtly varied,
and most are medium length, with the exception of longer sentences that generally serve
as lists and short, simple sentences used to emphasize a point. Sentences are often
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periodic rather than loose, and colons or em-dashes are frequently used. Parenthetical
embeddings insert the authors voice and opinion throughout the text. Typically, any
polysyllabic words used are words common in spoken English. Descriptive modifiers
(adjectives and adverbs) abound, and the texts make heavy use of sensory details to help
situate the reader inside the action or argument of the piece. These texts also often allude
to culturally relevant figures or events, such as the names of famous designers and widely
acknowledge fashion icon Michelle Obama in the fashion piece, and references to recent
mob violence in London in the piece about the Royal Wedding.
Personal Tenor of Discourse: The writer is directly involved in the topic, generally either
as a participating part of the dialogue (as in Time for a Royal Wedding, in which the
writer displays a definite bias) or as an active agent within the story (as in Look, Ma!
where the writer is being personally escorted around the warehouse). The writer
maintains a casual and familiar relationship with the reader.
Functional Tenor of Discourse: Newsmagazine articles are written to spur discussion and
thought, but generally do not go so far as to become a call to action. They seek to inform
readers about a topic or issue through the writers perspective in an entertaining manner.

For both pieces, the title serves as the first identifying marker of newsmagazine-
ese. Although Time for a Royal Wedding could ostensibly be the title of a news story,
the second half of the title While England is Royally Screwed marks it as distinctly
biased. The pun on the country being royally screwed, is unexpected and jarring in the
context of the royal wedding, which is typically associated with pomp and national pride.
This title also signals that the intended audience may share concerns about the state of the
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country and the monarchy that surpass the mere reporting of the event that was sure to
garner so much attention, and the diction throughout the piece works to strengthen that
connection between the writer and his audience. Jack opens the second paragraph by
posing a question, then reminds readers that the country is facing a [big] squeeze and
that workers throughout Britain will soon be [getting] the sack even while government
policies eat into their incomes to pay for those who are on the dole of the royal
family. He scatters less idiomatic but equally loaded words throughout the piece,
highlighting the governments policy of slashing public programs to help Britains
financial powers recover some glitter. Jack acknowledges his own bias by discussing
his personal experiences with the topic through the first-person pronoun.
Similarly, Look, Ma! instantly sets that article apart from a news story by
inserting a childish phrase into the title, thus setting the article up to focus on the
development of two child stars into legitimate Fashion Moguls. This transition is
further stressed through the diction in the first two paragraphs, which positions the
grown-up hit of their clothing line against words like diminutive and miniature that
constantly remind readers of their past celebrity status as child stars. The piece is casual,
inviting readers to reminisce over Full House those straight-to-video tween movies
while sharing in the authors wonder at how those squeaky-clean TV kids have now
found grown-up respectability and social purpose in the unforgiving world of high-end
fashion. Like Jack, Givhan is also directly involved in the experience she write about;
however, she uses the first person plural in combination with a present tense as she
describes her tour of the Olsens facilities, drawing the reader in even further.