ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I examine the ways newspaper eporters 'represent' oral interaction in the discourse of the 'news'. I will explore the concept of 'accessed voice' (Hartley 1982) in the representation of speech, in other words, who is given voice and how this voice is reported in the press. Since, much of the time, 'news is what is said', the values and words of a privileged body of people who have special roles in society are generally put forward. Women in general are part of the unaccessed voice group and the small quantity of female speech reported in the press, as I point out below, is sufficient to demonstrate that their social role has a special or deviant status. Unequal access is evident in what is reported and who speaks, and, as a consequence, the linguistic code imposes and reinforces attitudes and values on what it represents.
