Another way to manipulate facts is to take a very biased viewpoint .Two possible viewpoints are political and non-political. Newspaper 1 does seems to have a political viewpoint as it is taking pity on the police and is making them seem like the victims by criticising the rioters. This indicates that this paper takes the side of establishment and law rather than that of the rioters, the neglected residents of Brixton. Headlines such as ‘Police under Attack Again in New Fury’ makes the police out to be the victims and the mob to be a reckless, aggressive one. Headlines that demonstrate a particular viewpoint will attract the readers’ attention as they make the subject more dramatic. Newspaper 2 has a very different viewpoint, seeming to imply that the police were causing almost as much trouble as the rioters. ‘Eight police coaches, each containing forty men, were rushed to the area, further raising the tension’ suggests that this paper is taking the side of the rioters. It very much puts the blame on both the police and the Government and sympathises with the people of Brixton in its headlines . It is used here mainly to prejudice you even though it is opinion. ‘Police harassment’ and ‘Arrest sets off more clashes’ suggest that the main reason that the riots started was because of unnecessary action taken by the police. Other headlines, such as ‘No hope of jobs’ and ‘Decaying housing’, are blaming the Government for agitating the people of Brixton by not providing enough employment or repairing their houses. This could also be biased on T.V. as the editor could put forward only half of the full story ,so biasing the
As well as having a very biased viewpoint to attract the readers, the paper can be made more attractive and eye catching. The front page of newspaper 1 is very eye-catching indeed. As soon as you look at it, your attention is drawn to the photograph and ‘BATTLEFRONT’ in large letters, the battlefront being the front line of the rioting. This banner headline, white lettering on a black background, takes up the whole width of the front page and is designed to make it stand out and catch your eye. The picture dominates the page and all the writing is positioned around it, making it the focus of the article. Also the headline, ‘The picture that sums up the horror of Bloody Brixton’, makes you look expectantly at the picture as well as using alliteration to draw your attention to it. The use of a capital letter for ‘Bloody’ gives the riots a historical connotation, as though it is already a well known event. Newspaper 2 has a much simpler front page, with a simple black headline, a subheading and a picture. Unlike on newspaper 1 the headline does not draw your attention to the picture, because it is not specifically related to it. Although there are some banner headlines across the top in bullet point form, displaying points such as ‘No hope of jobs’, they are much smaller. I think that this paper is less sensational and a bit more ‘refined’ than the other, typical tabloid newspaper.
The headlines used in newspapers and the wording in them is another way to catch the readers attention .The headlines in a newspaper are very important as they often tell the reader what point of view the paper is taking, the nature of the event – if referring to one – who is involved, where it happened, and other bits of information as well. It is very important for a tabloid newspaper to use exciting and exaggerating vocabulary in them as this really helps to catch the readers’ attention and make them think that something very dramatic has happened. In newspaper 1, this has been done by using words such as ‘battlefront’. A word like this is obviously in the semantic field of war, making the events seem more dramatic. Other headlines, such as ‘Police under attack again in new fury’, make it sound as though the police were being physically attacked by the youths, who are described as ‘furious’. This sentence is in the passive tense whereas the other paper is written in the active. These headlines seem to be in a similar field of meaning and connotation as they are both associated with violence and the police being under attack. In newspaper 2, however, the headlines suggest different things. Headlines such as ‘Brixton points the finger’ and ‘Arrest sets off more clashes’ seem more thoughtful, as if the newspaper has analysed the events, not just exaggerated the happenings in them. They make it seem like Brixton is pointing the finger at the people who are doing the arresting (the police).
You can not only show your point of view in text or headlines, you can also embody it in your pictures. I would say that the points of view of the two papers are embodied in the pictures they use. In paper 1 there is a picture of the riots going on with youths throwing stones at lines of policemen with riot shields. This reflects its image of being interested in the action and actual happenings in order to create sensation. Its political point of view is reinforced as the picture shows the police being attacked. Therefore it is showing the authorities being attacked and is taking pity on them. On this evidence I would say that this paper does show its point of view in its selection of picture. Paper 2’s picture also embodies its point of view and its attitude towards the events. Its picture shows some Brixton residents walking about amongst the rubble of the buildings destroyed in the riots. This very much reflects this paper’s point of view of being concerned for the rioters in Brixton not the police. It also shows that it is concerned more with the after-effects and what can be done now than the actual action.
The front page of paper 1 is very eye-catching ,big, and bold: it has a large banner headline just below a caption about the picture. The picture is below the banner headline and below that there is a large subheading and some text. Below that there are some headlines about which pages everything associated with the riots is on. The front page of paper 2 is less big and bold: it has a smaller main headline below a smaller banner headline giving the paper’s reasons for the riots, this being their editorial viewpoint. Below the headline to the right is the picture and to the left of that there is a subheading and some text. The papers have a similar front-page layout, but paper 2’s layout is slightly more informative in that the reasons for the riots are written at the top so you know why the events happened (according to the paper’s editors) before you read about the detail, whereas paper 1’s front page is all about drama and sensation.
However it is not just headlines that are important: the language in the text is too. In paper 1, words and phrases such as ‘rampaging mob’ and ‘youths’ are used to describe the crowd. I think that words like this are used because the paper supports the police and wants to denigrate, or put down, the crowd, which represents an opposing force to the police. ‘Rampaging mob’ sounds like a large, angry gang charging about aggressively and wildly which would make the police feel intimidated. A ‘youth’ is often thought of as a yobbish teenager. Describing the crowd in such a way is intended to make the reader feel more outraged and more likely to take pity on the police.
Another way of working up the reader is to make use of tenses. Paper 1 starts in the present tense and then moves into the past, which helps to make the report more exciting and involves you in the action. In my opinion this backs up the idea that this paper is more interested in the action than the aftermath of the action. In paper 2 the report remains in the past tense for the whole article, which makes it more factual and backs up the idea that this paper is more concerned with the significance of the events.
Yet another way to use language to manipulate facts is to change the structure of the sentences. In paper 1 the youths are nearly always the subject of the sentence: ‘The youths were pushed back by a line of just six policemen with riot shields’. This is the paper that sees the police as victims, or as the heroes. It puts the youths as the subject because then it is easy (when in the passive voice )to say that the youths are having something done to them by the police, who are the object. In paper 2 the police are usually the subject of the sentence, because this paper sympathises with the rioters so it wants to make out that the police are doing things to the youths, who are the victims. Sentences like ‘A massive force of police herded groups of hundreds of black and white people’ demonstrate this. These sentences are mostly active .When paper 1 uses sentences like ‘The youths were driven back by a line of just six policemen using riot shields’, it puts it in the passive voice as it is trying to make the policemen sound heroic, whereas paper 2 puts it in the active so it makes it seem like the police were a menacing force pushing back the youths.
In paper 2, in the sentences that involve objects caught up in the riots, like houses and cars, the paper says things like ‘Homes were looted’. ‘Homes’ is the subject here as the paper is trying not to say who is doing the looting because it is the rioters and this is the paper that supports them. This helps to make the report more exciting. The passive voice is used here but the agent of the sentence is still unclear.
In this essay I conclude that through headlines, layout, language and images, a newspaper can put a story in a totally different light to that of other newspapers and reality. I suspect that paper 1 is a paper similar to the Sun being very ‘tabloidy’ and sensational whereas paper 2 is more like the Express or the Mail (more in the middle range) . Broadsheet newspapers are much less sensational and biased as they are aimed at a much more educated readership who may be able to detect whether the paper is biased or not.
