‘The Times’ had a more serious approach to the article. It has a very sarcastic heading almost turning what the other newspapers have said into a joke. The heading reads ‘The Bug That Ate Into Our Imagination And Sent Us Mad’ this tells us that all the other newspapers have fed an imaginary bug into our head and has sent our imagination wild. ‘The Times’ have used no sub-headings I think that this shows that it wants to appear as factual. They have put one very important word in capital letters to bring us back to reality: ‘FOUR’ this is how many cases actually existed and by putting this into capital letters they have shown how rare it actually is. They have set the article out in many different paragraphs to show all the different facts without having to over exaggerate with big sub-headings. This is a very formal report and very to the point and factual.
The first sentence of ‘The Daily Mirror’s’ article read: “A deadly flesh-eating bug killed one victim in just TWENTY MINUTES, it was revealed last night.” They have chosen to use a very severe case to open their story so that people become more interested and feel the need to read the rest of the article. I feel that they think by putting this first people will become very worried about an epidemic and will want to buy this newspaper every day to follow the investigation. By putting “last night” in the first sentence it looks like they are snappy with their information almost as though they are at one with the hospitals. ‘The Times’ has taken a sentence that they feel will put the whole situation into perspective. They wrote: “Last week death followed its usual pattern, 32 people perished from septicaemia in the hospitals of England and Wales.” Septicaemia is a very serious disease that the other tabloids seem to have made sound less adequate compared to this ‘bug’. ‘The Times’ is almost asking a rhetorical question in saying why are the other tabloids concentrating on a mild disease, while there are more deaths coming from more serious diseases that they are ignoring. They are very different opening lines that both want to achieve different things, ‘The Times’ wants to see how small a chance people have of contracting the disease in respect to other diseases whereas ‘The Daily Mirror’ wants to do the opposite and say how serious it is.
‘The Daily Mirror’ uses very laid-back conversational style writing. It refers to the bacterium as a ‘bug’ almost to scare the readers. It uses emotive language to over exaggerate the actual affects and create fear in the reader’s imaginations. It says it: “devours inches of body” this makes it sound like it is attacking the skin. It also uses words like: “terrifying speed” “spreading rapidly” just to show us that this is a fast acting disease and should not be treated mildly. It uses words that we associate with pain to scare the readers: “deadly” “agony” “flesh-eating”. ‘The Daily Mirror’ clearly wants to induce fear and send the readers imagination wild by using such a style of writing.
‘The Times’ takes a more formal approach and rather then referring to the disease as a ‘bug’ it says it is a bacterium. It keeps its information very rigid and to the point with important facts to set the story straight. It wants to make people less afraid by reminding them how rare the disease actually is. It also goes on to say very factually that the disease has been around for a while so it is unlikely that they are going to have an epidemic all so suddenly. It reminds us that the disease does not eat people’s bodies it produces toxins that destroy flesh. It seems to me that ‘The Times’ have taken special care in investigating the situation and rather then scaring people they want to put things into perspective. They are very informative and have taken an approach to reassure the public.
‘The Daily Mirror’ has made the disease sound like an alien and that a fight is taking place. They have done this by referring to it as a bug and saying that it is ‘cunning’ a bacterium disease is not ‘cunning’ as it cannot think for itself has no issues or morals so could never make up a ‘cunning’ plan as such. It makes the bacterium sound as though it has a mind of its own. It says it ‘obviously feeds on dead tissue and eats away at humans.’ Almost like this ‘bug’ is the predator and we are its prey. It sounds like it thrives on feeding from us but in reality we know from the factual report from ‘The Times’ that it produces toxins that destroy the flesh, not being eaten but disintegrating. It suggests that a fight is taking place by saying ‘we need to be on our guard against it’ almost suggesting that it is another species that is going to come and attack earth so we need to be prepared to fight against it. Also by saying ‘a special committee of consultants, hospital managers and senior nurses has been set up to combat the outbreak’ makes the public think of this committee as an army or something that is investigating how the defence is working and attacking us, it is a way to make us scared of what is happening. This would make the reader feel as though this disease was moving fast, but there are specialists that may be able to protect them.
‘The Times’ article gives a more balanced picture by referring to facts. It gives a wider view by discussing what the other tabloids have said and showing us how the things that have been said cannot be true by giving us facts that disagree with them. They manage to keep things in perspective, even in there first paragraph we see how rare and inadequate this disease is, almost as though it is very dangerous but we don’t really have all that much to worry about because it is so rare. It is suggesting that the public should be more scared of diseases like meningitis as this is more likely to occur in humans then a bacterium disease such as this one. This whole newspaper article has the effect on the public to reassure them and make them think that it is very unlikely to happen to them and in fact when they do have a sore throat that’s all it’s going to be; a sore throat.
‘The Daily Mirror’ uses the distressed relatives and victims. I think that this is so the article appears more at home with the readers. It makes it seem more of a reality when actual sufferers of the affects of the disease speak out to the public talking about their personal experience with the matter. ‘The Times’ uses experts with real knowledge of the situation seemingly because this is the article that wants to set things straight so they needed to use facts to battle with the other tabloids and achieve what they set out to do. I think that both of the tabloids used correct people in their articles to achieve their own way of attempting to engage the reader.
So to sum up the two newspapers have managed to engage the readers in totally different ways; ‘The Times’ by putting things into perspective and using facts to achieve this and ‘The Daily Mirror’ achieved what it set out to do by over exaggerating the facts that they was given and using sufferers of the affects to make it more of a reality to the public and everyone reading.
‘The Times’ article was written in order to correct the impression given in the tabloid newspapers that this disease was threatening to everyone. It presented a more objective and factual account of the disease and, therefore reassured the public rather than frightening them as the article in ‘The Daily Mirror’ would have done.
