This work is centred on the ethnomethodological concern that all texts can be respecified, as situated accomplishments of members' practical action and practical reasoning. Using, as a foundation, the work of Garfinkel (1967) and Sacks (I 992a; 1992; b) it undertakes the explication of members' methods of understanding and maldng sense of news reportage concerning airliner crashes. Methodologically it is grounded in Sacks' work on membership categories, devices and category bound activities. It is the assertion of this work that the study of the language of the news media should not be motivated by theoretical concerns and finthermore that the subject matter be considered as formally located in the occaisioned particulars of its Use.