The front page of the Daily Express contains two photographs, one of them is of the plan attack and the other photograph is of New York disaster. These two photographs have been compared to capture the reader’s attention by reminding the reader of the New York event. If an article is written in such a way that it reminds the reader of another major event is known as intertextuality. The second page contains two same sized photographs of the building before and after the incident. On the second page the caption underneath the photographs reads ‘Devastation: Firefighters and plain-clothes police officers race to the area after impact yesterday.’ This has the effect that something very awful has happened and people are terribly shocked. Only one photograph is used in the Times, which is located between the heading and the information.
The Times mainly concentrates on delivering accurate and factual information to the audiences instead of presenting it in a way that would instantly capture the reader’s attention. The headline used in the Daily Express is intended to grasp the reader’s attention by giving them a great shock and provoke them to read more about the article. The Daily Express makes the incident sound disastrous by saying ‘everybody feared it was another terrorist attack’ this sentence makes it clear that the people where extremely terrified by this incident.
The Daily Express uses short sentences and paragraphs and the language used is figurative and graphical, some of them read ‘tragedy which revived chilling memories of September 11’, ‘thousands of pieces of paper were flying through the air’ and ‘ security forces across the world put on alert.’ The vocabulary is accessible to most people who are highly educated and those who are not. The general theme of the article is tremendously frenzied and vigorous. It appears as vital and very interesting to read and also grips the reader to carry on reading the article.
The Times uses sophisticated vocabulary with long paragraphs and complex sentences. The language used is more formal and factual than that used in the Daily Express. Every detail is accurate and efficient but the Daily Express is deficient in this detail. The reporters do not include t their own personal views whereas the Daily Express seems to seize every opportunity to exaggerate statements or reports. Both articles include eyewitness accounts however; the Times article only quotes one.
To conclude, I would personally prefer the article in the Daily Express because the main feature to capture the reader’s attention is by its headlines and pictures. If an article is not attractive or eye-catching than the audiences might not even pick up the newspaper. Although the Times article is highly informative and gives accurate detail about the event. The reader will not get aggravated while reading the Daily Express article because the language used is informal and exhilarating.
This article makes me think intensely about how we could lose our lives and properties so quickly. Although this was an accident but what has happened is extremely terrible because this must have made the people terrified and caused devastation amongst many people especially the family members of the dead and the victims.