The first newspaper article I have read and studied is the broadsheet The Times. The article was printed the day after the incident occurred and was featured quite near the front as an important news event.
The article has a typical newspaper layout, it has a main headline for the article, the whole story is summed in the opening paragraph, there are three pictures and there are four columns and it appears quite formal and professional.
This article contains three pictures. The first picture is the biggest and it shows the wreckage of the crashed cable car. This picture would attract attention to the article and could shock the readers it also gives a clear idea of the damage that this incident caused. The second picture is a map of the mountain range in Italy where the event happened to give the reader an idea of where it is and how far or close it is to them. The third picture is a picture of a Marine Corps EA-6B prowler jet alike to the one that cut the cable wire. This picture is used to create a clearer picture if what actually happened.
The headline of the article says,
’20 die in cable car after jet cuts wire.’
This is a neutral headline showing no bias or blame. The article says just ‘20’ instead of saying something like 20 ‘people’ to make the headline quite short and so it doesn’t become too emotional and remains informative. The word ‘die’ is also used so that it does not point a finger at anyone, and it sounds like their deaths were accidental.
This article uses the language to create shock and fear in the first paragraph when it says,
‘Twenty people fell three hundred feet to their deaths”
This could frighten people as it could get the reader to relate to the people and imagine how terrified they were. This would be especially frightening to people that are afraid of heights.
Some of the language used emphasises the tragic impact of the wreckage,
‘The smashed bright yellow cable car ended crumpled on the tree lined snow on Mount Cermis.’
This quotation shows quite an effective way of showing how horrific the site of this wrecked cable car would have been.
A lot of the language in this article is mainly quite informative,
“The US plane was part of the Nato force patrolling the skies over Bosnia and was on a routine training flight.”
This is because broadsheets like The Times target people who want to know about the event in detail. The language manages to tell the facts and keep a mutual tone with out placing blame on anybody as it tells both sides o the story by including quotes from American and Italian officials.
The purpose of this article is to inform the readers of this disastrous event. It is not biased and tells the bare facts with little of the writer’s opinion included. The article includes many different quotes from different people and shows opinions from most points of view, which were involved. It hears what the locals have to say about this incident, and what the US officials who are having a hard time about this have to say about it.
The target audience for this article is well-educated adults who like to know a lot about events in depth.
The next newspaper article I have studied is from the tabloid ‘The Mirror’. This newspaper seemed to have more of an emotional impact in it. This article was also featured near to the front with the important news. This article like The Times’ also has a distinctive layout. Unlike the Times this article's lay out is used to be more attractive, it is very bold and stands out. This article also has four columns but there are more paragraphs, as they are much shorter.
This article also has three pictures. The first picture is the smallest and is a photograph of a cable car alike to the one that crashed. Underneath it is captioned
‘DEATH CAR: 300ft plunge’
I think it uses this picture and the caption as a dark pun instead of calling it a cable car it calls it a ‘death car’ and basically tells the reader about the article in this one caption. Creating interest in the article and makes the reader want to read on.
The second picture is the largest and shows the wreckage of the cable car. It is captioned ‘DEVASTATION’. It uses this to sum up the feeling of this terrible crash in the picture adding to the emotional impact in this article. I think the article uses this picture to attract attention and interest in it and makes the reader want to find out more of what happened.
The third picture is a simple cartoon of what actually happened, I think this is included so that the reader has a really clear idea of what happened and does not need to depend only on their imagination as much.
The headline of this article is,
’20 skiers killed as jet slices cable car wire’
The writer has used the word ‘skiers’ to create more sympathy to the people that died as it shows that they were just innocent people on holiday who wanted to have a good time. The headline says ‘killed’ as to imply it was not totally accidental and could have been prevented, it also shows it was unprovoked. It also says ‘slices’ as this makes the incident sound more violent and deliberate and gives the reader the idea that there was no chance for the skiers inside the cable car.
The article also has a few more presentational devices which the broadsheet the times does not. It has a subtitle ‘Brits tell of horror in snow’ which relates to the reader as they will be British too and will want to know what this ‘horror’ is.
The first paragraph is in bold, which shows it is different from the rest of the article because it is there to sum up the rest of the article.
The article has a box with a quote in it
‘It opened up like a cardboard box’
This would attract attention to the article if the reader was flicking through the newspaper and would want to know more. At the end of the article there is a big bullet point which contains a fact about cable car accidents.
This article uses language to create a much more emotional impact than The Times as it says things like,
‘They were killed instantly when the car was ripped apart ‘like a cardboard box’.
Using this metaphor is very effective as it makes the people inside seem totally helpless and creates a lot of sympathy for them.
They also say,
‘Rescuers found now survivors amid the tangled wreckage and bloodstained snow.’
I think this is a very effective paragraph and it creates an atmosphere of destruction and complete devastation.
This article shows a very strong British angle as it includes mainly British quotations and opinions of what they saw. ‘Briton, Neil, 35’ ‘Neil, of Heathfield Sussex’. Most of the article is based on the opinion of the British people in it. The subtitle is also about British views of the incident. I think the Mirror has used a more British angle so that the readers can relate to the incident more and make the reader think that Britain was more involved in it. It also suggests that The Mirror feels that if Britain is not at all involved in the incident then the reader will not be as interested in it. The Times however gives a more international overview of the incident and contains quotes and opinions from most sides.
The Mirror article does not contain as many facts as the Times and contains more quotations of people’s opinion rather than factual information. This is because the article targets generally less educated people who are looking for more entertaining articles and will enjoy the more emotional impact this article has.
The article is slightly biased against the Americans and the military involved as they only have a very small paragraph that shows what they had to say for themselves, where as there are far more quotations from Italian officials. It says
‘Regional president Carlo Andreotti said: Military aircraft’s should stop these war games.’
This quotation goes on for three more paragraphs but what is written about the American military involved goes on for one small paragraph.
This article is overall less formal than The Times article about the cable crash. It contains fewer facts and a more exciting layout to attract people’s attention and sell to their target audience. The main purpose of this article is to tell people about the incident but it concentrates on the emotional side of it and attempts to make it as entertaining as possible.
The third publication I have studied is an article from the American magazine ‘Newsweek’.
The layout of this article is different from the two newspaper articles I studied; this article contains no pictures and has a simple lay out with three columns, a short headline and a sub title.
The headline of this article is ‘Blood On The Snow’ this is a subtler headline than the newspapers and does not tell the reader what the article is exactly about in the main title. This headline also use the word ‘deaths’ or ‘killed’ like the other two as this article seems to have a different agenda.
The subtitle reads,
‘After a U.S fighter jet clips a gondola’s cable killing 20, Europe questions America’s character’.
From the subtitle it shows that the article is not focusing on what actually happened but on the political aftermath of the incident. Also by using the word ‘clips’ it makes it seem more accidental and less violent than using the word ‘slices’ like The Mirror and the Times did.
This article alike to the Times concentrates more on informing the readers rather than entertaining them like The Mirror, but this article seems to have a different agenda, whereas the times and the mirror concentrated on the actual incident this article goes into the consequences of this accident.
This article does not show much bias but seems to attempt to try and explain how America are not the only ones to blame and show how Italy were also to blame. It says,
‘Some claimed to have seen both U.S and Italian fighter jocks ‘hot-dogging’ bye threading under cables and high-tension wires.’
So this quotation is saying that people have seen not only the US pilots showing off and performing dangerous and foolish stunts but people have also seen Italian planes do the same.
This article does however show it is unbiased as it tells both sides of the story from Italy and US.
A quotation from the American pilot’s commander said,
‘We fly the routes they lay out’
The article then includes information from the Italian Air force chief, who said,
‘….the prowler was four miles off course and flying 3300 feet below the altitude designated in the flight plan,’
This shows that this magazine article tried to show all side of the article and its main interest was to explain the problems that were being caused in the political world after the incident.
The language in this article alike to The Times is very informative and formal and contains very little emotion.
‘Low-level flight training is even more problematic over densely settled Europe.’
Overall this article brings up controversial political issues and doesn’t concentrate on what caused it so much. It investigates why this incident occurred and shows the reaction of all the authority. I think that the agenda for this article is to show the politics of this incident and the reactions of other countries.
All three of these articles have a different purpose, The Times and Newsweek both concentrate on informing their reader whereas The Mirror is trying to entertain their readers. Newsweek shows an obvious political agenda in their article about the incident and explain more about what happened after it occurred rather than what happened during it as The Mirror and Times did. This is probably due to the difference between Newspapers and Magazines. A newspapers main purpose is to report current news soon after it happens. Both newspapers printed this article a day after it happened whereas the magazine printed the article 2 weeks after the incident occurred and this gave it the ability to go into more depth about what happened, the causes of it, the effects and the consequences.
Each article contained different tones and atmosphere that was created by the language. The language in The Mirror was the most colourful and attempted to create the most emotion within their audience. The Times showed the devastation by using informative and factual language. Newsweek also used very serious and informative language.
Each article was about the same subject but had different effects as they appealed to different audiences and approached the incident in different ways.
