I am looking at the story of an eleven year old boy who was shot dead by another youth. I will be using The Sun and The Daily Telegraph to compare the differences between tabloids and broadsheets reporting this story. The purpose of headlines is to catch the attention of potential readers by being large. They also catch attention by shocking the readers and by clearly informing us of what has happened. Most of the papers usually try to make their headlines large and bold to attract and persuade people to buy their papers. In the tabloid paper The Sun, the headline takes up about half of the front page.
The broadsheet paper, The Daily Telegraph takes up a little space on the front page but it is still using bold text to make it stand out. The Sun doesn’t try to make its headline more complicated as it is in The Daily Telegraph. The Daily Telegraph uses formal words like in the headline they say ‘youth’ instead of kid but the sun uses informal word ‘KID’ on its headline. The sun has four subheadings which show a summary of the story. Both of the papers don’t use much alliteration this might be due to the fact that this story is very serious.
The Sun uses lots of colloquial language which is a informal everyday word. The Daily Telegraph uses formal language for all their texts and headlines. The Sun uses sibilance on S sound words to make the headline more powerful ‘Yob Britain Sinks To A Sickening Low’. In the tabloid paper The Sun, it doesn’t have a picture on the front page this might suggest that this is a sensitive story. The broadsheet paper The Daily Telegraph uses a photograph on the front page of the paper; this shows that they are serious as the picture is taking up quarter of the page.
Both of the papers don’t have picture of the boy, The Sun has a picture of swimsuit modal on the front page. The photograph shown on the front page of The Daily Telegraph shows the scene in Croxteth park Liverpool, where the boy was shot dead and on the background they show the pub The Fir Tree to show evidence of the location of the place the boy was shot. The Sun uses photographs with the full detail of the story inside the paper. They use a big picture showing a tent where forensic specialists are examining the area where the boy was shot. The caption under the photograph describes what is happening in the photograph.
The Sun also uses two other small photographs showing the place sealed off and a car covered up searching for the bullet fired at car. In the tabloid papers the pictures are designed to arouse sympathy or anger for the boy and in contrast the broadsheet papers are less likely to be intended to create an emotional response. The Sun did not include a picture of the boy because they didn’t have one so they made the choice to stick with the bold headline at the front of the newspaper. Photographs are used to show seriousness sometimes sympathy and also evidence of a story.
The photographs shown in both papers are used to show sympathy for the boy killed and they make you angered to see a youth with gun kill a boy just 11. The purpose of each story is to inform people of what has happened. This is a fresh story breaking news, they will include a subheading and latest developments on the story and they will also include some background information. The Daily Telegraph seems to be more fact based and less emotional that the tabloid paper The Sun. The Daily Telegraph end the story with a political point for the conservatives by including a quote from David Cameron.
This is used to show that the conservatives have a tough approach to crime. The Sun gives examples of other crimes that are similar to the is story, this gives us an impression that Britain is becoming a dangerous place to live because there are lots of young people who can get hold of guns. The Sun doesn’t get anybody to offer any solutions in this increasing gun crime. The Sun is more of a alarmist they get the public worried. In conclusion I think that The Sun is a better paper to read and I prefer to read this paper.
Because in The Sun it is easy to understand the story and they have a lot of pictures to illustrate the story. Both of the papers have a similar story. In The Daily Telegraph you have to read out all of the story in detail to get the facts of the story but in The Sun you can read all the headlines to workout the story. I prefer The Sun because it gives you quick facts, a more simpler style of writing compared to The Daily Telegraph. Neither of the two papers have the picture of the shot boy but if they did it would have been more emotional and complete as a story.
