I have been given an assignment to compare three different types of newspaper. They are The Mirror, The Times and an American magazine style newspaper, Newsweek.

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Bradley Reynolds 11P1                                                                            

                                     Disaster in the Alps

I have been given an assignment to compare three different types of newspaper. They are The Mirror, The Times and an American magazine style newspaper, Newsweek. I have to compare these three papers of how they reported on the incident on the 3rd February 1998. A US fighter jet severed the cable of a ski lift in the Italian Alps. The cable car fell to the ground and all 20 passengers were killed immediately. This tragic event was widely reported in the British and the American press.

In brief, each newspaper reports on the incident differently. The Mirror firstly, is a tabloid paper so it will have a British theme to it. By this, I mean that The Mirror will bring British people’s opinions into the incident quite a lot. We can see this from the sub-heading “Brits tell of horror in snow”.

The Mirror seems to sensationalise the story, by overreacting to some things. This is used to grab the attention of the reader, and we can see this from the pull quote “ It opened up like a cardboard box.”

The Mirror is clearly a newspaper for less educated, possibly lower class people who read for entertainment. These people are quite different from people who are more educated and higher class who would read a broadsheet newspaper such as The Times.

The Times reports in the incident quite differently from The Mirror. We can tell that the layout is different from the Mirror as well. The target audience for The Times for quite intelligent people who are more literate, as it is more professional than The Mirror. It gives the reader basic facts on the incident to inform the reader quickly so they don’t lose interest. The witnesses and interviewees are more significant than the people interviewed in The Mirror since The Mirror interviews the British public to bring a British theme to the paper. The Times interviews more professional people such as police officers and rescue workers.

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Newsweek is the most unusual out of the three reports, as it is a very different style from the other two papers. This report doesn’t actually tell the reader the story, and what it really does is report about how USA and Italy blame each other for the incident and the history of Cavalese, a small town near the incident.

Newsweek’s non-specific, passive headline makes you want to read on, because “Blood on the Snow” isn’t precise enough for the reader to get a picture in their mind about the event, unlike The Mirror and The Times. Newsweek is also ...

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