The article tries to hit the reader emotionally in as many ways as possible. It does this by telling the reader about families who lost loved ones and how they reacted. To put across the impact of devastation, the writer writes about people who would not normally be associated with normal people. The writer uses words like ‘solemnly’ to describe the actions and feelings of famous people, such as Sir Rudy Guiliani and Robert de Niro.
Tabloids have always been known for the use of lots of pictures and this article is no exception. The use of pictures helps to stress the grief of the people there. The placement of the pictures is also important. There is an image of a policeman knelling and weeping over a fallen colleague. This picture is to show that someone who keeps law and order and is not just a ‘tough man’. But just like us and can be broken down to tears. A child kneeling and crying, probably over the death of a parent, echoes this picture of the policeman. To get a big emotional response the picture of the child was put in because it is moving.
At the bottom of the page there are pictures of Sir Rudy Guiliani, Robert de Niro and George Bush. These pictures are here to show these men’s humanity. They show that these celebrities can cry too, and do not always look glamorous. The Sun has crammed the page with photos so that they can tell stories that words cannot. The most shocking picture of all, is the one of the actual attack, when the second plane is flying into the tower and the first tower has smoke bellowing out of it. The last picture in the centre of the page shows the ceremony and the amount of people who were there and this gives you a feeling of the destruction.
The article starts off with a summary of the events. It then goes on to tell the readers about the contributions of the celebrities and what they did, such as the reading of the 2,801 dead. The writer describes their actions and how they spoke like, ‘Sir Rudy Giuliani began solemnly reading out aloud the names…’ The journalist also wants to emphasis the scale of the attack by saying it took over seven minuets to read some of the ‘a’ names. The article tries to put across an awareness of all the senses, such as sound because there was a mournful string band.
The most moving section of the article is about the normal people who lost loved ones. It tells us their feelings and in one, the person said that she needed to go down to the pit and touch the dust because the ashes were the remains of her son. George Bush was also visibly moved with tears as he carried around the badge of a policeman found in the debris. He is quoted as saying ‘every life taken here, every act of valour performed here, the nation holds in honoured memory.
The language used in this article is used to give it a sensational effect as is used a lot in the tabloids. The journalist has thought a lot about the way he writes. He uses alliteration in ‘her dead dad’ and also some metaphorical language ‘grey dust that still cloaks the site’.
This article concentrates on the service and the feelings of the people who lost friends or family. It has everything needed in it to give the effect it wants to give out, which is the emotional response from the reader.
The Times
The broadsheet paper The Times has only a small headline, which takes up a small proportion of the page, however, it gets straight to the point. Even though the title is not much it makes you want to read on and see what the service was like. The first words the writer uses is ‘The Pit’ in bold to create a bigger impact, ‘The Pit’ can be associated with burial because a pit is like where the coffin is place and ground zero is the graveyard for many people. From the bold text it changes to small emotional writing when it says’ the loneliness of grief’. ‘The loneliness of grief’ is sort of a contradiction because even though there are a lot of people there, people still feel lonely because they have lost a family member who once was, people probably just wanted to keep to themselves through out the service. Even from the headline, it is beginning to be clear that this article will be about the emotional side of the service rather than the service itself.
The journalist tries to give the reader a feeling of what it was like to be there by describing the sounds and views. He mentions ‘The faint skirl of the bagpipes died away’. Adding small details such as, ‘Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, honey, and it’ll be ok’ shows how people can become united and help each other. The writer then goes onto mention the celebrities’ contributions by reading out the names of the dead. Unlike the Sun article, which tells lots of emotional stories, The Times tells quite a long one. At the end of the article the pentagon was mentioned, even to show more death and add to the morbid feeling in the article.
The image tells the picture of the title. It shows two people hugging, this picture
Aims to draw a lot of emotional response from the reader. One man appears to be wearing a kippah. Which shows that the devastating effects affected lots of races. The picture is a long shot in colour so you can see the bleak brown of the ground and it’s surroundings. In this image the texture of the ground is visible making it seem it seem the reader was there by showing such detail.
The Times concentrates more on the Damotas family and shows the effects the attack had on other family members. After reading the article you feel as if you know the family and you realize some of the emotions they must be feeling. The Damotas family were expecting a baby. The 6month old baby was at the service and will never know his father. This was added into the article to make the reader feel sympathy for the family.
The journalist writes in a way that makes the readers feel as if they were there, because he says much by indicating that he was a part of the crowd. The journalist cleverly uses poetic words and metaphors as he describes the rubble like a mountain. He describes all the sight with such detail, ‘ long-stem roses in pink, yellow and red’, and describes the contrast between sand and grit. It gives you more of an idea what it was to be there.
This article concentrates on one family rather than the service. In a way this is good because it shows emotions, but people may have wanted to read more about the service.
I have summed up both of the articles. The newspapers are aiming to get an enormous possible emotional response by using images and descriptive writing. Images in the Sun work very well because they linked up with the words and formed a morbid feeling. The way the Times got their point across was using the story of one family and their losses. I think both articles worked very well, but in different ways.
By Daniel Kaminski