Using 31 news leads found in news articles published in Philippines newspapers – three broadsheets and one tabloid – the present study describes the news leads' organizational structure and identifies the shared cultural context evoked by the news leads. The analysis of the news discourse employed Bhatia's (1993) genre analysis focusing on communicative purpose, and Simpson's (2000) physical structure analysis. The study revealed that the genre of journalism, specifically the 31 news leads,

more »

... illed its main communicative purpose - which is to convey information - through Direct, Summary, or Conventional lead. The leads are characterized by brevity and directness with adherence to the ideal length consisting of 35-word limit in both broadsheet newspaper and tabloid newspaper. The result implied that writing pattern or written discourse is influenced by the culture of specific genre. The result manifested that Filipinos are capable of adaptation to rules in a particular genre. The study served as an avenue in finding out the conclusion that digressiveness, which is a characteristic of writings of Oriental writers, is not always evident in the discourse of newspaper compositions of Filipino writers. This study maybe helpful to researchers who wish to analyze culture through discourse analysis using a specific genre.