The 3 articles, although they are all about the same event, concentrate on different aspects of it. The Star article concentrates almost entirely on Frank Bruno himself. The first column is all about a conversation taking place between Bruno and his manager. His opponent Witherspoon isn’t mentioned until the bottom of the first column. He is given only 1 paragraph out of the first 6. After this he is not mentioned for the rest of the article. It does mention how the heavyweight title remains in American hands as Witherspoon won, but this only mentions the country. That is at the top of the second column and after this the rest of the column is back to Bruno.
The Daily Mail gives a very detailed description of the actual fight. There are also a lot of exact figures given. There is a ’42,000 crowd…paid more than £2 million’. The other articles tend to generalise or guess, The Star calls it ‘the nation’s’, and The Guardian calls it ‘thousands’. The majority of the article is taken up by the description of the fight. The amount of detail that goes into the description means you can visualise parts of the fight actually happening. It tells us all about how ‘the snap began to go out of his punches’, and how ‘he shook Witherspoon with good punches’.
The Star has a lot to say about the fans’ admiration of Frank Bruno. It turns the ’42,000 crowd’ mentioned in The Daily Mail article into the whole of England. It talks about the ‘nation’s longing to see a Briton crowned king’. It makes it all very majestic using words like ‘king’, turning the boxing fight into a very important event.
The Daily Mail has a lot to say about Bruno’s fans’ as well. It mentions the ’42,000 crowd’. It is also the only newspaper to mention money, when it mentions the £2 million that fans spent on watching Bruno. It goes on to say how much the fans loved Bruno, ‘They sang ‘Frankie, we love you’ in a demonstration which came from the heart.’
The Star has a very good attitude towards Bruno. You can see this from the title where it calls Bruno ‘brave’. The article mentions the theme tune from the Muhammad Ali film. ‘’The haunting theme tune from The Greatest Story Ever Told.’ This is like The Star is comparing Bruno to Ali. Ali was one the greatest boxer ever so to compare Bruno to him is a very big compliment. It is also saying that Bruno’s story is also a great story like Muhammad Ali’s was. The fact that Tim Witherspoon is only mentioned once in the article tells us that The Star doesn’t care about him at all, only about Bruno. They don’t care that he won the fight; they believe Bruno is the better. Nearer the end of the article there is a sentence in italics. ‘But don’t feel guilty Frank, we told him’. This is the paper talking to Frank Bruno. The ‘we’ is referring to The Star. They are telling him not to feel bad that he lost. It then continues to say how he showed ‘strength…courage…showed the world one Briton with the heart of a lion.’ This is very complimentary to Bruno, saying he has the heart of a lion is saying he is extremely brave.
In The Star article there is a bit where Bruno’s own words are included. This makes us feel that we are getting close and personal to Bruno. We are getting to know him better.
The Guardian is not as nice about Bruno. It says how the ‘rigidity and stiffness of Bruno’s boxing contrasted with the swinging street-corner style of the man from Philadelphia’. It doesn’t think that Bruno was a very good boxer at all; it even prefers Witherspoon a bit. It goes on to say that Bruno’s fighting ‘proved to be no more than drawing material’. They are saying that Bruno wasn’t ready for the fight. It is as if all of his fighting has been taught to him from a drawing board in a gym somewhere. None of it comes naturally to him. This is mentioned in another articles as well. In The Daily Mail it says ‘the manufacturing of Bruno was incomplete’. The Guardian journalist goes on to give Bruno some advice about the fight. ‘Bruno ought to have produced more sweeping moves across the ring…’ This is what The Guardian journalist thinks Bruno should have done. This is only with hindsight that he is able to give this advice though; Witherspoon has already won the match. The Guardian doesn’t really compliment Bruno at all. It does say how he ‘held all the aces when it came to reach.’ The other time it could be interpreted as a compliment in the first paragraph. It says ‘Bruno was like an intrepid explorer trekking the icy waste.’ Someone who is an intrepid explorer is very brave and fearless. The icy waste is Tim Witherspoon. It is saying that in his fight against Witherspoon Bruno was very brave. In this extended metaphor it goes on to say, ‘suddenly he slipped into a crevasse’. The crevasse is his loss against Witherspoon.
The Daily Mail has quite a good attitude towards Bruno. It is a lot better than the attitude from The Guardian. It opens with the sentence ‘The only thing Frank Bruno lost at Wembley in the early hours of yesterday was a fight’. This means that he grew in status; even though he lost the fight he has gained a lot of peoples respect. It goes on to say how he grew also in the ‘affection of the fans’. All of this means the newspaper thinks he fought well. We can see that the newspaper likes Bruno when it continues to say he ‘gave the last ounces of his heart and guts – and showed ability enough to suggest a long way into the fight that he had a real winning chance.’ They are being very kind about Bruno’s fighting style. But even though they say these things they also mention how ‘the manufacturing of Bruno was incomplete’. So The Daily Mail also thinks that Bruno was not ready for the fight. This is backed up earlier in the article when it says how ‘it was a classic clash of Street Fighter and Gym Fighter.’ This means that Witherspoon is a natural street fighter but Bruno is not, he has been taught everything in a gym.
At one point in The Daily Mail article the journalist questions the strength of Frank Bruno’s chin ‘Bruno took punches which answered the question about the strength of his chin.’ This means that the reporter from The Daily Mail thinks the answer was that his chin is not strong enough, because Bruno lost the fight. It goes on to give an explanation why his chin lacks strength, ‘he lacked experience of pacing a fight and of developing stamina’.
The articles all have different impressions of Tim Witherspoon. The Star article doesn’t seem to care about him at all. He is only mentioned once at the bottom of the first column. In the second column there is a quote from Bruno saying ‘I lost to a better fighter.’ I don’t think that The Star put this in to make Witherspoon look good, but to make Bruno look like a friendly, maybe noble, person.
The Guardian has a lot better things to say about Witherspoon. It tells us how he has a ‘swinging street style’; unlike Bruno he was a natural fighter. At times it is almost as if the paper prefers Witherspoon to Bruno. But it does not have only good things to say about him. It calls him ‘open-mouthed, heavy-breathing’. This is comparing Witherspoon to an animal. Animals are heavy-breathing and open-mouthed. So the newspaper doesn’t like Witherspoon that much if they’re comparing him to an animal. It also goes on to call him ‘untidy and ungainly’. So The Guardian is sometimes complimentary towards Witherspoon but at other times they are not so kind.
The Daily Mail had quite a good attitude towards Witherspoon. It is very complimentary about his fighting. ‘There was a left hook then four more rights – only one was less than perfect’. It does not say much about him though; it outlines his punches but does not really comment much on them. It comments a lot more on Bruno’s play. This gives us the impression that Bruno is more important and they care more about him than Witherspoon.
The article from The Star gives us the distinct impression that the journalist is inside the dressing room with Frank Bruno and Terry Lawless. This is because of the exact details the journalist includes. One of these is how the journalist knows the song that is being played included, along with the conversation between Bruno and Lawless. He must have been in the room to hear all this. Also how the exact position of Bruno is given gives us the impression the journalist is there, watching him. This is contradicted in The Guardian where we are told that Bruno was ‘locked in his dressing room away from the media.’ If this is true then we have to say that The Star journalist can’t have been there and that the quotes are made up.
In the 3 articles there is alliteration. This alliteration gets us into the rhythm of boxing. In The Star there is alliteration in the title, ‘Brave Bruno Fails’. There is more in the second paragraph when it says ‘sat sadly’. This isn’t only in The Star article; it is also in the other 2. In The Guardian article it says ‘round by round the rigidity’. It is also in the title for The Daily Mail article, ‘Fans Hail Bruno As Title Bid Fails’. All of this alliteration really gets us into the boxing rhythm.
The journalists also use metaphors to help convey their ideas. The whole first paragraph of The Guardian article is an extended metaphor. This whole metaphor, comparing Bruno to an intrepid explorer, really helps set the mood for the rest of the article. Later on in this article it calls Witherspoon an animal with the ‘open-mouthed, heavy-breathing’. This comparison to an animal is also brought in later on when it says Bruno lifted ‘his hands to paw away the danger.’ This is like an animal paw. The fact that the journalist compares both fighters to animals is saying that the fighters were like animals. The way they attacked each other ruthlessly and viciously in the ring.
There are lots of things that some or all of the newspapers agree on. All 3 articles use words like ‘sprawled’ or ‘crumpled’ to describe how Bruno was after the fight. All 3 articles also comment on the type of injuries Bruno sustained. The Star journalist writes about ‘the pain of his jaw’, The Guardian says, ‘a first cursory examination which indicated that Bruno’s jaw was broken proved to be unconfirmed,’ and The Daily Mail writes about ‘punches which answered the question of the strength of his chin’. So all 3 articles agree that Bruno had or could have injured his jaw. The Star mentions other injuries, ‘dark glasses shielding the bumps and swellings around the eyes.’ None of the other articles mention this.
Another thing all 3 articles agree on is that Bruno was courageous in his fight. The Star says he had ‘the heart of a lion’, The Guardian calls him Witherspoon’s ‘courageous opponent’ and The Daily Mail says he gave ‘the last ounces of his heart and guts’.
The Star and Daily Mail say that Bruno was winning at the beginning of the fight. The Guardian doesn’t exactly agree with this. ‘From the outer darkness beyond the Wembley touchlines it probably looked as though Bruno was doing rather well.’ So The Guardian is saying that he wasn’t actually doing well. Even though he may have looked like he was that was only from a distance away.
The Guardian and Daily Mail both mention that the fight was in the ‘early hours of yesterday’. The Star doesn’t mention a time. This is probably correct because the majority of boxing matches are done very late at night going into very early the next morning.
The Star talks about the ‘nation’s longing to see a Briton crowned king’. This is similar to The Daily Mail when it says how the fans were ‘hoping to cheer Britain’s first heavyweight champion of the world this century.’
I think that The Star article is mostly made up. The whole of the first column is just something the reporter has made up. As we know from The Guardian article there were no media inside Bruno’s room so there is no way they would have heard the conversation. It is very much biased towards Bruno; Witherspoon is only really mentioned once. It mentions how Bruno still has his dignity and it tells him not to feel guilty. I liked this article because even though the Briton has lost it tells us that there is still hope and is very optimistic. It is even slightly triumphant, which is a thing to be when you have lost.
The Guardian article is very opinionated. It tells us lots about what the journalist thought was happening in the fight. This article is good because it is very unbiased, it is by far the least biased of the 3 articles. I don’t like it so much because of this. It is very depressing and disappointed.
The Daily Mail article is very detailed. It is good because it gives us a good account of the fight. I like it because you can visualise the fight almost as if you are there. It is also very optimistic, it starts with a good attitude, Bruno has not lost everything. The way it says it was only a fight. The journalist makes it sound that what he gained by losing is much more than he would have gained by winning the fight.
