Newspaper Comparisons

Measurement of space was not helpful as some articles had larger font and were more spaced out than others.

I will use statistics to help show the difference between the three papers I have chosen to compare and contrast my results. Using statistics will be the base of all of my calculations; I will refer back to them to back up my studies. With the statistics I will be able to show averages, percentages and ratios between my chosen newspapers.

Readability depends on length of words, lines and paragraphs. In my article from the Sunday Times there were 33 paragraphs with 1190 words. It is obvious that the Daily Star with 10 paragraphs and 290 words is more easily readable. The Observer comes in between with 15 paragraphs and 448 words.

My sampling method was to count words etc. in comparable articles from three different papers. The limitations of this were that no account could be taken of the word length and difficulty. Short words are easier to read. However you would expect the paper with the shortest number of words would have the shorter word length and easier vocabulary.

There is a practical problem and there are also limitations to the method of choosing the articles for my assignment. It is difficult to find three articles from different newspapers on the same subject e.g. sport. I could not have compared from more than three papers. I originally had 5 different papers however I could not find more than 3 that covered the same article.

I have represented my statistics in three tables. I have converted my results in to pie charts and column charts for each individual sections in each paper e.g. Words, I will take the statistics from my three chosen papers.

The Sunday Times (1)

Paragraphs

33

Lines

56

Words

190

Characters

6208

Characters (with spaces)

7399

33 / 7399 x 100 = 0.446 %

Therefore 0.446 % of the article in The Times is paragraphs.

6208 / 7399 x 100 = 83.9% - 100

= 16.1 %.

Therefore 16.1% of my article in The Times is spaces between the characters.

190/ 33 = 36

There are 36 words on average in each paragraph in The Times.

The Observer (2)

Paragraphs

5

Lines

43

Words

448

Characters

2232

Characters (with spaces)

2687

5 / 2687 x 100 = 0.56%

Therefore 0.56% of the article in The Observer is paragraphs.

2232 / 2687 x 100 = 83.17% - 100 = 16.83%

Therefore 16.83% of my article in The Observer is spaces between the characters.

448 / 15 = 33

There are 33 words on average in each paragraph in The Observer

The Daily Star (3)

Paragraphs

0

Lines

22

Words

290

Characters

494

Characters (with spaces)

785

0 / 1785 x 100 = 0.56%

Therefore 0.56% of the article in The Daily Star is paragraphs.

494 / 1785 x 100 = 83.77 -100 = 16.23%

Therefore 16.23% of my article in The Daily Star is spaces between the characters.

290 / 10 = 29

There are 29 words on average in each paragraph in The Star.

The Times has (448 / 1190 x 100) = 37.65% more words in than The Observer, however the Observer has (290 / 448 x 100) = 64.73% more words than The Daily Star. The Times has (1190 / 290) = 4.1 (ratio 4.1:1) times as many words in its article as The Daily Star. In theory this means that The Times is 4.1 times longer and takes up a larger area in the paper than The Star, however this is not true because of how the papers lay out their articles. The Star tend to space out their articles and also have larger print font, for easy light reading for the more simple reading where as The Times is a more up market newspaper with small print font with tightly compacted text to fit in much more information.

The data follows a pattern. The Sunday Times has the most items in all categories, The Observer next and The Daily Star the least.

The pie chart and column chart clearly show the differences between the 3 papers.

The initial plan was to compare one article in 3 papers for word space and content. The method I used in counting words, lines and paragraphs proved conclusively that The Sunday Times had a longer more detailed article than the other 2 papers in all respects.

The one factor that surprised me was that all three had a similar average of words per paragraph. The Sunday Times had 36 words per paragraph, The Observer 33 and The Daily Star 29. The number of paragraphs therefore determined the article lengths. This followed that the Sunday Times had the longest article and The Daily Star the shortest.

The results are totally what I would have expected. The Sunday Times is a more upmarket newspaper catering for people who want more detailed news. The Observer is more middle of the road and The Daily Star is for people who want to glance at a paper with shorter punchier storylines that are easier and quicker to read.

My statistics have proved that the newspapers are fulfilling the expectations of their readers.

Adam Deas

Newspaper Comparisons