Taking the image of people jumping from the Twin Towers as your starting point, compare and contrast the media coverage of the events of September 11th as reported in a broadsheet newspaper, a tabloid and the television.

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Taking the image of people jumping from the Twin Towers as your starting point, compare and contrast the media coverage of the events of September 11th as reported in a broadsheet newspaper, a tabloid and the television.

‘The Mirror’, ‘The  Times’ and a ‘BBC’ television report all cover the same horrifying set of events- the September 11th attacks on the twin towers which ultimately changed the world. However each one has tended to focus on these stories from very different angles all aimed at diverse readerships and viewers. ‘The Mirror’, with its varied use of colloquial language, employs the means of an emotive, emphatic and personalised account to incite shock and disbelief amongst its readers, producing a sensationalist and attractive read. On the other hand, however scandalous the events may have been, ‘The Times’ has aimed for a more cautious approach to the report, providing its readers with a formal, factual and unbiased account and therefore allowing them to come to their own conclusions on the previous day’s happenings. The ‘BBC’ televised news report has used a mixture of the two, utilizing dramatic visual experiences in addition to an informative and formal background news report relating the events in the very same order that they happened.. The three news reports have used the images of victims leaping from the twin towers to immediately pass the message on to the reader/viewer of how desperate the situation was, consequently shocking the reader or viewer as well as to catch their instant attention.

 Readership differences can be easily compared with either newspaper’s headline choices. For example ‘The Times’ has used bold but small-case letters, with a simplistic but effective title ‘Bloody echoes of Pearl Harbour’. By referring this new calamity to the previous deadly attack during World War 2, the writer would have managed to demonstrate to the reader the scale of the attacks and this is further aided with the use of strong emotive language in ‘Bloody’. Even though it is not capitalised and has a relatively small font size compared to ‘The Mirror’, the headline has proved to be effective as the reader, out of plain curiosity, would like to know what disaster has happened for it to be comparable to pearl harbour- an act of war. Moreover with such a headline being placed directly above a horrific picture of a person leaping out of the tower and a sub-heading describing the fact that thousands have died, its effectiveness is further augmented. On the contrary, ‘The Mirror’ has individualised its headline with a quote from a person stuck inside the tower ‘“WE ARE ALL F***ING DYING IN HERE”’. An expletive is included, heightening its emotive effectiveness and portraying the suffering and desperation of the victim(s). With the application of huge, capitalised and bold font, expletive and emotive language and the writing taking up half the page, the headline is unquestionably eye-catching and would beyond doubt attract the type of readers described beforehand. It has also been placed directly where a reader would normally expect there to be a picture and with the text being set out in the shape of a tower as well as a‘t’, one can easily recall the significance of these two factors.

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With its use of ‘WAR ON THE WORLD’, featuring Osama Bin Laden and George W. Bush on either side of the banner, ‘The Mirror’ has illustrated the significance of these attacks by disclosing the fact that it will affect the whole world . Also, by placing this alliterative catch-phrase on either side of a picture of these two men it shows who, in reality, this war will be between even though the catch-phrase may specify otherwise. In contrast ‘The Times’ has used a different approach to spread the most important information to readers in its use of bullet points. ...

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