The Times and Newsweek’s report relies heavily on official interviews rather than the passers by which The Mirror relies upon. The Mirror also includes more quotations from the witnesses than The Times does. Newsweek does not use any quotations or interviews from eye-witnesses at the scene.
Both The Mirror and The Times specify who the victims were – “9 women, 10 men and 1 child". And also their nationalities - "at least 6 were German, 2 Hungarian and 2 Polish.” This causes a greater sympathy because it makes the deaths seem more important and more in depth. But Newsweek says “20 tourists from seven European countries” but it is reported it is only tourists from 3 different European countries.
Even the sub-headline says that 'Europe questions America's character'. This all starts to confuse the reader and so does not give an accurate picture of the incident. The words used also try to disagree with the facts of the incident. Words like 'griped' and 'claimed' both suggest that there was nothing wrong and everyone was 'ganging up' against America.
In The Times, the witness interviewed is not British, so the Times keeps the story international. An unreasonable complaint is made in the first line, which may show their guilt:
“Cavalese had griped about the fighter jets that regularly roar up their Alpine river valley.” In addition to this the paper attempts diluting the blame by saying that the fighter jets were just “hot-dogging”, also claiming that the Italian authorities condone low-flying: “Italian military officials routinely defended low level flights…”
Finally, the last paragraph of the report supplies an extravagantly tenuous link: “The pope had personally pleaded for the convicted murderer to be pardoned.” This is designed to conceal.
All three articles made use of interviews, but the manner in which they were used differed; For example in The Mirror, a British couple, Neil Harmar and his girlfriend, Stacey O'Donnell, gave a lengthy interview and informed us that they “missed the second car by minutes.” They said that “all hell let loose” and stated that they were “shook up.” Furthermore, they described the village as being in a state of “complete pandemonium.” The couple reiterated how thankful they were that they "missed that car," and the fact that they were “incredibly lucky to be alive.” Even though the British couple did not provide a lot of information about the incident itself, they did help to describe the atmosphere and their feelings on the situation. The British couple were interviewed primarily because of the fact that they were British; the target audience of this British paper are British people, therefore, the majority of people would be interested in hearing about events concerning British citizens.
All three articles had interviews with people who possessed various details about the aircraft prior to it hitting the cable car wire. In The Mirror, this interview was quite brief. Cristina Antoniazzi, the owner of a nearby hotel, said that she “heard and saw a plane flying at a very low level.” This message was also present in an interview in The Times. An anonymous witness said that the jet had "seemed" to have "technical trouble," and described the jet as "screaming through the sky" like a "thing in torment." Another source in The Times also stated that the jet had been flying "very, very low." All three of these interviews were supplied using direct speech. In contrast, the interview in Newsweek was given using reported speech- Italy's Air Force chief, Mario Arpino, said that the Prowler was "four miles off course" and was also flying "3,300 feet below the altitude designated in the flight plan." These particular interviews were used in order to provide an image of the events immediately before the plane hit the cable car.
Each article also had interviews with people who objected to low flying by the Americans. In The Mirror, Regional President, Carlo Andreotti, was quoted as saying “We’ve had enough of these war games’
The headline of The Mirrors article is,
'20 skiers killed as jet slices cable car wire'
The writer has used the word 'skiers' to create more sympathy to the people that died as it shows that they were just innocent people on holiday who wanted to have a good time. The headline says 'killed' as to imply it was not totally accidental and could have been prevented, it also shows it was unprovoked. It also says 'slices' as this makes the incident sound more violent and deliberate and gives the reader the idea that there was no chance for the skiers inside the cable car.
The article also has a few more presentational devices which the broadsheet the times does not. It has a subtitle 'Brits tell of horror in snow' which relates to the reader as they will be British too and will want to know what this 'horror' is.
The first paragraph is in bold, which shows it is different from the rest of the article because it is there to sum up the rest of the article. The article has a box with a quote in it 'It opened up like a cardboard box'
This would attract attention to the article if the reader was flicking through the newspaper and would want to know more. At the end of the article there is a big bullet point which contains a fact about cable car accidents. This article uses language to create a much more emotional impact than The Times as it says things like, 'They were killed instantly when the car was ripped apart 'like a cardboard box'.
Using this metaphor is very effective as it makes the people inside seem totally helpless and creates a lot of sympathy for them. They also say, “Rescuers found now survivors amid the tangled wreckage and bloodstained snow.” I think this is a very effective paragraph and it creates an atmosphere of destruction and complete devastation.
A graphical picture of the event in The Mirror lets the readers visualize what the scene of the accident was like, using essential details and words so that the reader can effortlessly understand the unpleasant incident. The Mirror also provides a photographical image of the scene and annotates it using dramatic words such as ‘doomed.’
The Times shows a map of the area where the event was situated, making readers aware of the location of the tourist venue. And the image of the EA-6B Prowler shows readers the cause of the tragedy. The main image above the text is eye catching in the way it shows workers trying to rescues any survivors.
Newsweek not using any pictures, but a headline that will catch attention ‘Blood on the Snow.’ The sub-heading in a box of two lines standing out making the reader aware of what the article is about.
In conclusion the news was best portrayed in The Mirror, it provided names of witnesses making the news much more reliable, and British citizens used as witnesses was also a good way to grad attention of British readers.
By Sumaira Bashir.
