On Thursday 22nd April 2004, Ron Atkinson, manager and footballing coach, was overheard making a racist remark concerning play

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                Comparison of News Reports: Broadsheet and Tabloid

On Thursday 22nd April 2004, Ron Atkinson, manager and footballing legend, was overheard making a racist remark concerning player Marcel Desailly- the black Chelsea defender during the Chelsea-Monaco Champion’s League semi-final.

        The story received colossal press coverage from all of the newspapers, mainly because Atkinson is famous for coaching so many black players. I have studies two newspapers’ accounts of the same story. One paper is a tabloid (The Sun) and the other is a broadsheet (The Daily Telegraph). The reason why I have chosen to examine a tabloid report and also a broadsheet is to discover the similarities between them and also the contrasts in the reporting style, biases and also the way Ron Atkinson is presented throughout.

        The main headline of The Sun is ‘If Big Ron’s racist, I’m a white man’. This headline uses slang and personalisation as it refers to Atkinson as ‘Big Ron’. Another similiar headline is ‘Black soccer aces back ex-boss in race slur row’. These headlines have more of an impact because they actually use the words ‘racist’ and ‘race’. These words are politically incorrect and to use them when you’re such a high profile personality is seen to be a controversial scandal. There is one main photo of Atkinson; it is a casual picture, I know this because he is wearing sunglasses and casual clothes. It is an extreme close up picture and he actually looks quite threatening. A photograph of him with the Coca-Cola Cup and various photos of famous footballers who support Atkinson make him look more respected and important. This article is split into three columns and has more pictures than text.

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        The main headline on The Daily Telegraph is ‘The costly thoughts of Big Ron’. This also uses the technique of personalisation like the tabloid; however it is more formal and does not use slang. It does not have as much impact as The Sun uses words like ‘racist’, it seems less harmful because they are only ‘costly thoughts’ instead. There is a more formal, serious picture; he is shown doing his job in smart clothes and he looks dignified. There is only one picture and a lot more text which is divided into eight columns.

        The sun differs from the ...

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