difference way. The most recognizable example of this is the heading. The heading
immediatley shows us how the article is using bias to make the situation out to be much
more than it really was. The heading reads, "CHICAGO GUN BATTLE IN LONDON:
GANGSTERS WITH MACHINE GUNS ON ROOF KILL DETECTIVE, WOUND
ANOTHER." This is a completely bias heading with not even one element of truth. It
describes the situation as a Chicago gun battle and describes Derek Bentley and
Christopher Craig as gangsters with machine guns when infact they were two young
people with a gun and a knuckle duster. We immediatley get the impression that the
artical is bias against Derek and Chris rather than for them from not only the heading, the
whole article presents bias against them. "The gangsters armed with a sten gun hit one of
the officeres as he climbed the fire escape towards the bandits." The article here describes
Derek and Chris bandits and gangsters. The article also presents very few facts but many
opiniums. Important information and facts the article has left out are that Derek and Chris
were holding just a pistol and knuckle duster, the age of the offenders and especially that
one of them (Derek) had a mental age of 11. Leaving out these sort of fact make the
readers think differently, they make them think what the article wants them to think about
it. Another very noteable way the article using to make the reader believe and think what
the atricle wants them to is by using emotional language. A perfect example of emotion
language within the article is how Derek and Chris are made out to be more guilty by the
article describing the Police officer DC Miles in a very sympathetic way. "He was
Detective Constable Miles, in plain clothes of Z division, a married man with two
children with 12 years of service.He was killed." The article makes the reader feel very
emotional about the death of DC Miles. Notice how Miles was described with all good
points talking about his years of service and his family and then it is brought down with a
quick three words, "He was killed." Those three words make alot of impact to the reader.
So basically this article is biased against Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig using a
vast amount of hyperbole and emotional language to make the readers believe what the
article wants.
The second piece of media is the film "Let Him Have It" revolving around Derek
Bentley and what happened to him. After watching this film I felt quite emotional and
sorry for Derek. The film most certainly portraits him to be harmless and innocent
making it very different from the daily mail article. The film makes us feel sorry for
Derek and puts us on his side, they do this by focusing Derek as the main character.
Christopher Craig is shown as the stereotypical "baddie" in the film who influences Derek
into wrong. The introduction of Chris Craig into the film is quite the typical entry of an
evil, mischevious character. The audience immediatley know that Craig is the villian on
first site, and the film makes the impact by using typical villian music and the cheeky,
michevious and somewhat evil way he looks at Derek slyly and grins. In the film, Derek
is shown as coming from a loving family and a general good backround but we dont see
much about Christopher Craigs back round at all. We get the impression he comes from a
rough background.
On Chris Craigs and Dereks first encounter we immediatley get the impression that
there friendship is one sided. Derek doesnt warm to Chris at all and trys to avoid him.
The film portraits Chris Craig as the source of all Derek Bentleys trouble resulting in his
sentence to death. This is bias. Infact the film contains alot of bias, except unlike the
newspaper article its for Derek Bentley instead of against him.
At the beginning of the film it shows a scene in a london street while the war is on. It
shows a rubble of concrete and fireman digging into it to see if anybody is trapped. They
find a crying baby, thus being Derek Bentley. This scene shows us that Derek is not a
normal baby, he had problems when he was younger. The next couple of scenes show
more of Derek's problems, like his epilepsy and his learning disability as we find out he
hs only recently been discharged of a special need school at the beginning of the film at
the age of 18. The film shows this footage as evidence of for Derek, showing he was not a
normal boy who led a normal life. When questioned by a jury in the film at his trial Derek
looked very nervous. He hardly talked and was very scared. He was sentenced to death as
we know and killed. The film showed Dereks death to be very quick but brutal. I think
they did this to show the guards didnt want to do it ,so they wanted it over with as quickly
as possible. When you watch this film you notice the fim leaves some information out,
maybe this is because the film doesnt have enough space for all the info, or its leaving out
so it doesnt show Derek to be bad. At the end of the film, because of the ways in which
the information is presented, I felt quite sorry Derek and placed the blame of his death on
the shoulders of Christopher Craig. The bias in the media has steered me to this decision.
So in conclusion, personally out of the two media samples I prefered the Film. I
prefered this because it was less harsh than the article and not so bias, it contained some
facts whilst the article contained hardly any. Once again, all non-fiction media will
contain bias. It is pretty impossible for them not too, but as we have seen to day some
contain quite alot more than others.