The picture is VERY effective, especially the fact that it shows Steven Parr’s injuries which makes the readers feel sympathy for him. Basically pictures are worth a thousand words which in this case it is true: if someone didn’t find the headline interesting seeing the picture would change their mind as it shows the terrible suffering he has endured and it would make the reader want to know how it happened. The picture shows Steven Parr with his arm in a sling and his black eye, the picture of Steven’s arm disrupts the writing as his arm sticks out which will make you look at the picture and shows the seriousness of his injuries. Another thing would be that in this picture Steven is looking straight at us, making a personal connection. Ben Taylor could have used a picture of Steven Parr before his ordeal but then that would have not had the same effect on the readers as the current picture does.
The reader’s perception of Steven Parr is that he was a normal man taking his dog for a walk. The first thing we find out is that he is married, a father of two which shows he is a family man and a fifty one year old showing he has been around for a while and is an engineer which shows he is clever as he would need qualifications. Steven Parr comes along as a brave man who wasn’t looking for any trouble. He acted with good intentions and was punished for it. He could have been one of our parents.
We are given quotations from police, Steven Parr himself, his cousin Dennis, wife Jennifer, daughter Suzanne and son Matthew these quotes are very biased so there will be nothing to argue against the idea that he is a good person, “he would always help in an emergency.” Quotes are used to strengthen Steven Parr’s character as a good man as everyone said that he is the type of person to intervene when it comes to “rights of other and their property.” These specific people have been chosen to give quotations as they will back up the character built up by Ben Taylor they are also used as we would believe what they say as they are related to Steven Parr so they would obviously know him very well They reinforce each other because they practically say the same thing as each other.
The language Ben Taylor uses to refer to Stevens Parr’s assailants as well as the attack its self is sick, vicious and the attackers as “thugs” these are strong words. When describing what had happened he kept repeating them. For example “The sickening assault suddenly stopped and, in a bizarre show of sympathy for their bloodied victim, the thugs offered him a lift home” The fact that Steven Parr tells us that he thought they were going to kill him this shows how much of a vicious attack it was, “I thought they would kill me” words like ‘sickening’ and ‘bloodied’ make the description brutal.
The injuries Steven Parr sustained from the attack were a fractured jaw, a detached retina and a broken arm. We are told that Steven Parr may not get his eyesight back which we find terrible to read. As humans we hate to hear about the suffering of others, but we are reassured because we are told that Steven Parr will get his eyesight back.
The quote from the home secretary is used by the newspaper to show that the government are quite useless when it comes to keeping our streets safe, he tells use that “if we don’t do not intervene who will?” When people read this they will not go out and intervene because they don’t want to end up like Steven Parr beaten senseless. The Daily Mail in this article is anti government as they are implying that we pay taxes for the police yet we are expected to do their job and get beaten up for it.
What was written just goes to show that even doing the right thing has its consequences just like it did for Steven Parr. Reporters use many different techniques to sway our view of the events they tell us. In this report Ben Taylor has given us facts about what happened to Steven Parr but he has also influenced our opinion about the events.