Comparison of ‘ the Sunday Times ’ and ‘ the News of the World ’.

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COMPARISON OF ‘ THE  SUNDAY TIMES ’ AND ‘ THE NEWS OF THE WORLD ’

Introduction

The Sunday Times is a highly regarded newspaper, tending to be very conservative and highly informative. It is aimed at those who are interested in all the details about current affairs. The News Of The World is a tabloid newspaper. These are papers that appeal to people who may just want to scan the news quickly, in order to have a good idea about the events happening around the world, without giving up great amounts of time to read a lengthy article or articles. They are distinct in the way that they deal with presenting the news to their readers. In this piece of coursework I am going to analyse and compare the two papers by looking at their respective front page in detail and briefly looking at how the two papers treat the same story differently.

Headlines

The Sunday times is a broadsheet and typically, has a bold, medium sized headline, in lower case letters. The headline is bold so attracts the reader, but much more importantly the headline hits you hard. The headline, ‘ Astronaut’s die as shuttle explodes above earth ’, is a very emotive headline that gets straight to the point, instantly the reader knows that astronauts have been killed because their shuttle has blown up. Words such as ‘die’ and ‘explodes’ help to achieve this, the headline puts the reader in deep shock as it is sudden and unexpected. It clearly explains and summarises the main point of the story, the headline fits in with the picture very well as it shows a star like object exploding (this is later fully developed in the ‘ Photographs paragraph’. The Times also has two mini sub-headings relating to the story.  

The News Of The World headline is typical of a tabloid, it fills up a lot of space. It is big, bold and simple. The headline uses a figure of speech and reads ‘ NO CHANCE ’, it is in big block capital and stands out very well. It is white against a coloured background so looks diverse, as usually the headlines are black. The headline ‘ NO CHANCE’ does not give the reader much depth into the story, unlike the Times which got straight to the point. The lack of depth in the title in the News Of The World may provoke the reader to read in greater detail as it makes the reader wonder, ‘ there is no chance of what’, but as the reader looks to other than the headline they can see a box with words saying ‘ 3000 F, 38 miles up, 12,000 mph. The crew of Columbia had….….’ This is excellent as it leads the reader slowly, dramatically and emotively, to the headline ‘ NO CHANCE ’, by using facts.

Then finally the reader realises that a crew that was travelling at ferocious speeds with a high temperature and altitude, had NO CHANCE of surviving. This is an excellent feature as it builds up tension and make the reader want to know the full detail, it links very well to the picture. The News Of The World has a strapline heading at the bottom saying ‘ FULL HORROR STORY ON PAGES 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11’. This heading is very emotive as the word ‘horror’ is used to say that the crash was horrific, it adds much more emotion. This is typical of a tabloid, using emotive diction.    

Overall the News Of The Worlds headline is more attractive and dramatic, compared the Times. The Times headline got straight to the point and the reader instantly knew what had happened. The News Of The Worlds headline is big and bold and it slowly, factually, emotively and dramatically reached it’s conclusion; that the crew had no chance of surviving (by using the small caption). It makes the reader want to read on more as they want to know how ‘horrific’  it was, it strikes the reader straight away because of the sheer size of the headline and attracts the reader’s attention.    

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Layout

The layout of the Times, in this instance is unorthodox. Usually the Times would have half of the page relating to the main story as it is ‘hard’ news and the remaining space would be filled with ‘soft’ news and small adverts. But as the story in the Times is a significant one, the story fills up the whole of the page, which is rare. Most of the story is on the actual crash, but on the right hand side there is a story relating to one of the astronauts.

This story is particuly significant and is ...

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