I have heard some say it is midwest, but some also say that it is truly neutral.

18 comments

  3. Yeah, they’re going for ‘general American’ now that the transatlantic accent has mostly phased out IMO.

    I feel like that’s heard a lot in the northwest or in cities like Denver with a lot of transplants from all over the country.

    Idk enough to describe it properly, but I think it’s a rhotic accent, pin-pen sounds aren’t merged, caught-cot aren’t necessarily merged either though. Some anchors and reporters have specific sounds they mute a tad but that’s more for mic use rather than accent.

  5. Historically, Nebraska or other parts of the Great Plains.

    Regional accents have become so watered-down since the advent of radio, however, that most broadcasting students—at least the white ones—need little study or correction to be considered acceptable.

  7. I would consider current newscasters “neutral american”, at least for pronunciation . They do have some affectations around cadence and emphasis, mostly ones that are meant to smooth out reading from a teleprompter into something consistent if not exactly natural.

    Or from another angle: Most Americans, if asked to describe a southern accent or a boston accent or whatever would instinctively start describing that accent by how it differs from news voice. That’s what I mean by “neutral”.

  9. In my linguistic anthropology class we learned it as being from northeastern Indiana. In fact there used to be a hotline in Fort Wayne you could call for pronunciation help.

  10. You mean where did it originate from? I’m not exactly sure and I’ve heard all sorts of versions of the origin.

    These days though, the “News accent” (or neutral or general accent) is spread across the entire country.

    I highly doubt you could tell where I’m from based off my accent.

    Maybe you could pinpoint via dialect.. but accent alone? People out west and down south could easily talk the same way I do.

    There’s a majority North American accent these days that most of us use (with some individualized variation within)

  14. Rockford Illinois.

    When radio began the accent of Rockford Illinois was chosen to be the ‘standard’ or ‘neutral’ accent.

    Evidently this was one of the reasons that Ronald Reagan had early success in broadcasting, because he was from that area and already had the ‘right’ accent.

    I don’t think people today are going for a ‘Rockford accent’ anymore, but the standard neutral that is taught was first based on that of Rockford 100 years ago.

  15. Midwest… but not too far north or south. Too far north in the Midwest and you sound Canadian. Too far south and you sound like you’re from Alabama.

  16. I always think about it as Southern Californian, because Los Angeles produces so much media to the USA and the world.

    But I’m seeing tons of other references to The Plains or The Midwest, and this leaves me wondering whether our accent is just descended from all the people who came West during the early-mid 20th century. If you live in California and aren’t Latino in heritage, your ancestors probably spent time in the Midwest. Mine are Indiana and Michigan, for example.

  17. Former broadcaster here!

    Neutral Midwestern is THE “neutral” accent… which is why broadcasters learning non-regional diction practice it. The confusion comes from the assumption that there’s only one kind of Midwestern accent. But that’s far from true.

    The best way I can explain it is the movies Blues Brothers and Fargo. Both feature characters with heavy midwestern accents, but they sound distinctly different from each other; and neither is an accent that someone looking to read the news would practice.

    Hope this helps!

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like