Written by a linguist who is himself a journalist, this is a uniquely informed account of the language of the news media. Based in the frameworks of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis its concerns are with the notion of the news story, the importance of the processes which produce media language and the role of the audience.

Allan Bell has been both making and studying media language for many years. He has worked as a journalist and editor in a daily news service, weekly newspaper and monthly magazines. He has researched media language in several countries, especially New Zealand and the United Kingdom. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand combining his research there with work as a freelance journalist and media consultant.