The narrated news event and the news reading situation are two key locations of controversy that are highlighted in the study of controversy as news discourse. In contrast to the direct dialogue of the classical speaking situation, the indirect dialogues of news discourse toggle attention between the narration of the journalist and the pragmatic interaction of the narrated interlocutors. If the classical speaking situation depicts an ideal pragmatic interaction, news discourse depicts a pragmatic engagement that is mediated by a reporting situation and situated in historical and social contexts. In narrated news events, controversy appears as a constituent of the these various levels of context. When approached with certain genres of reading, the formulas of news discourse help to position the reader and the text artifact in a larger public space in which controversy unfolds.