Compare the ways in which a tabloid newspaper and a broadsheet newspaper treat the same news story.
Compare the ways in which a tabloid newspaper and a broadsheet newspaper treat the same news story.
The death of John Thaw was announced in national newspapers on the Friday 22nd of February 2002. In my essay I am going to compare the story of John Thaws death from two newspapers. These newspapers are the Mirror, which is a tabloid and the Times which is a broadsheet.
Tabloid newspapers include the Sun, Star, and Mirror. Broadsheet newspapers include the Gaurdian, Times, and the Daily Telegraph.
The differences between a broadsheet and a tabloid are the size, a tabloid newspaper is half the size of a broadsheet. You need a lower reading age to read a tabloid because there are shorter articles, and more pictures. Whereas to read a broadsheet you need a higher reading age, this is because they use longer words, they tend to go into more depth and detail in their articles, and they have less pictures than a tabloid. The news articles in a tabloid focus on personal stories and stories about gossip. They love to talk about the private lives of television, film and sports personalities, they like to stir up trouble about secrets and affairs, these stories tend to be sensational. News coverage in a broadsheet is focused on hard news like politics, world and national affairs, economics, trade, and finance. The articles in a broadsheet are factual and they don't talk about gossip. Entertainment coverage in a tabloid is good, they cover television, films, and music, it's mainly popular music and concerts. Entertainment in a broadsheet focuses mainly on the arts, music theatre and book reviews. They cover jazz, opera and classical music, also there is good coverage of ballet and concerts. Both newspapers have excellent coverage of sport, they both cover sports such as football, rugby and tennis. However the broadsheet also covers minority sports, like polo and archery.
In the times newspapers the article about John Thaws death is at the bottom of the page. It's not very noticible, it's not the lead story, the lead story is about politics. Also the article doesn't contain any pictures. It consists of six, two inch columns. In the Mirror the article is the lead story. They dedicate almost half the front page to John Thaw plus the whole of page seven, also there are seven photos of John Thaw throughout his life.
The headline in the Times is small and doesn't stand out, it gives the main ...
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In the times newspapers the article about John Thaws death is at the bottom of the page. It's not very noticible, it's not the lead story, the lead story is about politics. Also the article doesn't contain any pictures. It consists of six, two inch columns. In the Mirror the article is the lead story. They dedicate almost half the front page to John Thaw plus the whole of page seven, also there are seven photos of John Thaw throughout his life.
The headline in the Times is small and doesn't stand out, it gives the main details and it's factual, the headline is also present tense 'John Thaw dies', this is present tense so that readers think they are getting the latest news. The headline in the Mirror is huge, black and bold, it's also short and stark, and not a complete sentence. The headline is emotive 'Morse star John dead', this stirs the emotions of the readers. The headline contains all one syllable words and it is also in the present tense.
In the opening paragraph of a newspaper article the journalist usually uses the four w's which are who, what, where, and when. This is the key information of the article, readers usually make the decision whether to read ahead if they want more detail, based on the photographs, headlines, and the first paragraph. In the first paragraph of the times all four w's are used, however in the Mirror they only use three. They use who, what, where, and when, but they don't mention where John Thaw died. They only use the three because they are not bothered about the statistics, just the gossip side.
The article in the Times is quite formal, it's small and doesn't go into much depth. It can be split into four sections, each is dealt with briefly. The first section of the article is about John Thaws cause of death, he died of cancer of the oesophagus, this section also deals with the treatment he recieved. The second section is a statement from Shelia Hancock who is John Thaws wife, she thanks everybody for there support. The third section deals with John Thaws family history it tells us of how his family have been touched with the disease before. His wife had fought back from breast cancer, his six year old grandson was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and Shelia Hancocks first husband Alec Ross died due to cancer in 1971. The final section is about John Thaws career, it gives the names of television programmes that he has appeared in. This section also contains a statement from ITV's director of channels, David Liddiment. In the Times article it gives you the name of the novelist that wrote the novels that the television programme Inspector Moorse is based on, this would not be found in the Mirrors article. To read this article you need a higher reading age, this can be seen in the sentence 'he was offered the part of the grumpy, beer loving, cerebal, oxford based detective in Inspector Moorse' this is four adjectives proceeding a noun and this is not in the Mirrors article. This tells you four things about him in one sentence, they are condensing the article because they have less space than the Mirror does. In the Mirror it tells you the same thing, but it takes them a page to do so.
The Mirrors article deals with the same issues as the Times but goes into greater depth and it contains gossip. The article in the Mirror tells a more personal story. It describes John Thaw as we knew him with his craggy features, this is so that we can get a picture of him in our minds while reading. The article contains gossip such as he had to survive on mainly fish, chips and beans during his struggle as a child. There are other gossip elements such as he nearly turned down the part in Kavanagh QC because he didn't like the idea of wearing a wig. The article gives details of how he met his wife Sheila Hancock, and it tells you about his family life. The Mirror article has a lower reading age for example in both articles they tell you John Thaw went to RADA. The Mirror tells you what RADA stands for 'the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts', but in the Times it doesn't give you this information, because they expect their readers to know what RADA is. The language used in both articles denotes reading age, and you need a higher reading age for the Times.
The Times article doesn't contain any photographs. In the Mirror there are seven photographs, one on the front page and six on page seven. The photo on the front page is of John Thaw and it's in an oval shape. The oval shape gives the idea that it's been taken out of a family photo album. On page seven there is a small photo of John Thaw and his wife Sheila Hancock in a circle shape, this also gives the idea of it coming out of a family photo album. Next to the small photo there is a huge photo of John Thaw. The photo is four colums wide, and it's how people remember him, his eyes are looking directly at the camera, this was his acting technique. At the bottom of page seven there is a further four photos. They are joined together like a reel of film, these photos are of him acting in some of the popular television programmes he starred in. The photographs in the article make it seem more personal.
The article I like the best is the one in the Mirror. I like it best because it contains photographs. It was more interesting because it gave a more personal and detailed story, it gives a more personal story by using photographs and telling you about his family history. The Times article wasn't interesting, and it didn't grab your attention, in my opinion it was boring.
