Using the image of bodies jumping from a tower as a starting point, compare and contrast the articles of tabloid and broadsheet newspapers covering the incidents on September 11th 2001.

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By Balraj Sohal 10r

Using the image of bodies jumping from a tower a starting point, compare and contrast the articles of tabloid and broadsheet newspapers covering the incidents on September 11th 2001

In the early afternoon (British Standard Time) on September 11th 2001, an unexpected terrorist attack shook the whole of the western world, and changed the Manhattan skyline forever. Organised attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon spread fear and shock throughout the U.S.A. Thousands of innocent, helpless, people perished in a tragic, public, event that became the biggest international story for at least the last three decades.

Two British newspapers, The Times and The Mirror provided extensive coverage of the event, and used the same image of people plummeting to their death as their selling point, yet their approaches to their written articles differed greatly.

One of the few similarities between the articles of the tabloid and broadsheet newspapers was the picture that they both used as their centres of attention. They were large moving pictures used as the selling point. The pictures were of people jumping to their almost certain death on the rock hard floor beneath. They created pathos, by making the reader feel sorry for the victims, a couple jumping hand in hand from near the top of one of the towers. Both pictures took up the majority of the page and were aimed to catch the reader’s eye. The pictures made everyone realise how unbearable the conditions in the towers must have been for people to jump out of windows from the very top floors. They were both eye-catching, making the reader want to read the article to find out more about the events.

However, the captions of the pictures used different language. The tabloid newspaper’s language was emotive, due to the use of dramatic words such as, ‘…plunge to certain death…’ This was because people would have been drawn to the picture and read the caption before reading the article. Therefore the language used in the caption had to be emotive and sensationalistic to attract the attention of the reader. Where as the language used by The Times newspaper was more factual and less dramatic. The sentence, ‘People were seen leaping from the windows minutes before…’ shows this.

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The headline of the tabloid newspaper, The Mirror, ‘WE ARE ALL F***ING DYING IN HERE’, was written in bold type and capital letters, in the centre of the page. The contrast in size between the headline and the rest of the article made the headline the centre of attention and eye-catching. The headline was also quoted from a terrified woman in an office, near the top of the tower, screaming down a phone for help. It was something that the readers of the tabloid could have related to, as the language was colloquial and is commonly used in times ...

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