In contrast the headline in ‘The Times’ is less emotive and more factual language. ‘Boy, 7, Savaged To Death In Dog Attack’. This headline just basically quotes what has happened and doesn’t even use the boy’s name ‘Dean Parker’; it describes him as ‘Boy, 7’. Although ‘The Daily Star’ also doesn’t use his name, they describe him as a ‘Snow Boy’, which paints a picture of him, but ‘The Times’ don’t use any words that are imaginative or make the reader have an image of what happened. Also the tense is different to ‘The Daily Star’; they have used past tense, ‘savaged’ is saying that it has already happened so it may make the reader think that it’s not as bad as ‘The Daily Star’ describes it. The headline, in ‘The Times’ is just factual and just tells you what happened, when it happened and with who, whereas ‘The Daily Star’ implicates more imagination and emotion into its headline. ‘The Times’ headline nearly paints the opposite picture of what happened or doesn’t give you such an abrupt picture of what happened compared to ‘The Daily Star’.
In both newspapers the same photograph is used but its placement and captions underneath the picture are completely different. ‘The Times’s photo is in the middle of the text so it’s not necessarily the first thing you see, so this shows it’s not the basis of ‘The Times’s story. The caption underneath is factual, just as the headline is. It reads ‘Dean Parker: dead on arrival at hospital’. This gives you another little bit of the story, or another fact but again has no emotive language or descriptive language in it. ‘The Daily Star’ has placed its photograph at the top of the page so it is definitely the first thing you see. Although it is the same photo, the caption displays a much different meaning over it, ‘DEAN: Savaged’. This may make the reader gasp or think that how could such a terrible thing happen to such a sweet boy. Also the ‘savaged’ is used once again which means that he was ripped apart, murdered or brought his death in an atrocious way. Again ‘The Daily Star’ uses this chance to maybe exaggerate what happened or uses the photograph to pull the heart strings of the reader.
Both articles are obviously based around the story of Dean Parker being killed by a dog but both newspapers describe Dean in different ways. ‘The Daily Star’ describes Dean as ‘little’ and ‘screaming youngster’. The word ‘little’ makes Dean seem all the more innocent or unable to defend himself against the dog. ‘Screaming youngster’ makes you imagine that he was in agony while he was being killed which an awful is thought so once again ‘The Daily Star’ is using emotive language. Also ‘The Daily Star’ describes Dean’s injuries in great detail; ‘huge razor-like gash’ and ‘neck pumping blood’ are just two ways that his injuries were described. This is again using descriptive language. ‘The Daily Star’ uses Dean as an innocent figure in their article; this makes it all the more sad and shocking that he has been killed or ‘savaged’. I think that ‘The Daily Star’ using Dean as an ‘angel’ is a very clever idea to make the reader feel even more sympathetic.
In contrast, ‘The Times’ is very different. Every time that ‘The Times’ refers to Dean Parker, it is always by his name, unlike ‘The Daily Star’ which sometimes talk about Dean as ‘little Dean’, which again makes the reader imagine him as helpless. ‘The Times’ doesn’t exaggerate Dean’s death either, and only uses facts to describe Dean, and doing so it makes Dean’s death sound nearly not as brutal which just shows different language can effect the way you think about an event. ‘The Times’ also mentions a fact that ‘The Daily Star’ leaves out. ‘The Times’ says that ‘the animal “went wild” after snow was kicked at him’, whereas ‘The Daily Star’ fails to mention this, because it would interfere with their story of a fight between good and evil.
The dog is looked upon as evil or bad in ‘The Daily Star’ more than it is in ‘The Times’. In the ‘Daily Star’ the dog is a ‘beast’ and ‘ferocious’, this suggests that he is out of control or a monster who is the opposite of the normal household pet that you would normally picture in your head when you think ‘dog’. This ‘demon dog’ is almost an insane animal which may even be thought of as bad as Satan. This adds to the tension of good vs. evil. And the fact that Dean is eventually killed might make the reader think that Satan or ‘evil’ has won the battle. But the dog being ‘destroyed’ or waiting to be ‘destroyed’ may put the readers mind at rest that it won’t ‘savage’ another ‘innocent’ boy.
‘The Times’ keeps its description of the dog simple but enough for us to know that the dog is bad to have killed Dean Parker. Also ‘The Times’ describes Dean’s injuries in much more detail than ‘The Daily Star’. Dean’s farther described very unemotionally ‘a long gash which exposes the bone’ which is a horrible but true picture of what happened. ‘The Times’ also gives the dog’s name which is Tutu; this destroys the whole image that ‘The Daily Star’ sets of a ferocious dog, so they chose not to include it. ‘The Times’ doesn’t at any time try to emphasise the dog’s ‘madness’ or make her sound worse than she is. In fact ’The Times’ almost makes you think that is snow wasn’t kicked at ‘Tutu’ it wouldn’t have attacked Dean Parker.
Both newspapers report the savaging and death of Dean Parker but I think that ‘The Times’ article is more efficient and clear in reporting what happened. ‘The Times’ include more quotes from Mr. Sanderland, the RSPCA, and Craig and Gareth who were walking the dog. ‘The Daily Star’ does include quotes but not as many and not as detail as the ones that are in the ‘Daily Star’, the ones in ‘The Times’ are longer and they have ones from people that ‘The Daily Star’ didn’t bother or couldn’t interview. Furthermore ‘The Times’ once again includes more detail and describes what happened in more depth than ‘The Daily Star’. It may even seem wrong to some people but ‘The Daily Star’ uses exaggeration to make their story more catastrophic and terrifying and even more interesting than ‘The Times’ article.
Direct speech is used so that the ‘Daily Star’ and ‘The Times’ can validate their views. ‘The Times’ includes more direct speech than ‘The Daily Star’ and the word of advice at the end of both the articles is from the RSPCA, but it is interesting because ‘The Times’ have direct speech from RSPCA’s chief veterinary, whereas ‘The Daily Star’ mentions that his name is Terence Bate, but fails to use what he says about walking big dogs alone as direct speech.
When you read the article you don’t really notice what is in quotation marks and what isn’t, so you assume that everything that is supposedly said really has been. ‘The Times’ uses direct speech as part of their detailed account. With more detail this makes ‘The Times’ seem more of a sophisticated newspaper. ‘The Daily Star’ is a shorter article but more horrific and makes the reader feel more sorry for Dean Parker than they maybe would if they read ‘The Times’.
From writing this essay I have decided that although ‘The Times’ is more efficient in their writing, ‘The Daily Star’ is a more imaginative and opinionated newspaper.
