Describe The Structure And Purpose For Different News Articles- M2/P3

I am going to be looking at the structure of four different articles to see how they are presented, I will be analysing them for their use of language and presentation. There is two different styles of news, hard news and soft news, each having their own conventions, so it is important to look at both.

Hard news: 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/02/20/first-female-black-rod-650-years-takes-position-house-lords/

This first article is hard news and follows several conventions that support this. This article is on the first female black rod in 650 years, first of all the headline is very formal and describes exactly what the article is about, the headline is "First female Black Rod takes up position in House of Lords after 650 years". Its very straight to the point and sums up the entire article, this is something that hard news articles do often as they usually have more serious topics to talk about and use less humour compared to a tabloid talking about celebrity gossip. The article also starts with a large T for the first letter, this is a traditional convention of newspapers as it was used in old English, this is something The Telegraph uses is most of their articles as their theme is aimed at a more traditional, older demographic, which perhaps justifies the more serious content as younger generations are known to be more interested in modern celebrities and sports. The article is written in 3rd person as the whole focus is on this woman, but there also an interview with her presented through a series of quotes, it simply talks about what has happened and what this means as well as showing her thoughts and feelings on the matter. The article is trying to show us a big moment in history as we are growing even further out of gender stereotypes, it is making a statement that this woman is very successful and doing well for herself, it seems to empower her through praise and acknowledgement of achievements. This article uses images that show the woman, the main image being her with her new uniform on with other images of her doing her brand new job. It is common for hard news articles to appeal to a ABC1 audience, this is something the Telegraph definatly does which is evident with its use of sophisticated language, this is shown in phrases like "Peers cheered as Sarah Clarke appeared at the door of the chamber ready to assume her duties." This more sophisticated language probably would not be found in a soft news article.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-homeless-man-left-85-10714014

This is another had news article, this time from the Echo, a report on an attack on a homeless man. A crime like this one is hard news and usually presented very formally, again the headline is straight to the point describing the event, the headline is "Liverpool homeless man left with 85 stitches after being slashed across face for asking for change". This instantly lets the reader know what happened without even having to read the article, another convention of hard news is having a statistic or figure In the headline, which both of these articles do, again this is just supporting the idea of how formal these articles are. This article much like the previous Telegraph article uses three images, these images are simply for reference as it shows the reader what the man who was attacked looks like, the scene of the crime as well as the police officers on the scene, these are all simply for reference in context of the text. The language in this article is also very sophisticated and formal, as well as addressed in third person, it uses phrases like "Anthony McIntyre, 50, suffered a large laceration to his eyebrows and nose, and a cut to his right eyeball" this is a fairly graphic description but tells the reader exactly what happened as its goal is to simply explain the situation, for most of the article it sticks with a 3rd person account of the even, however the article has some statements taken from the victim, this is obviously from a first person perspective as it quotes him but the language swaps to more colloquial language as it uses local slang such as "fella" and "mate".

Soft news:
http://www.celebsnow.co.uk/celebrity-news/scarlett-moffatt-stop-airbrushing-723661

This article is on celebrities using photoshop on their social media pictures to make themselves look better, this article comest from a tabloid magazine called "Celeb News" which focuses entirely on the lives of modern celebrities. Straight away this article is much less formal and is clearly soft news as the headline is "‘Stop the airbrushing!’ Fans beg stars such as Scarlett Moffatt to quit faking it!" This headline is not made to tell you what is in the article, it is created to intrigue you into reading the article, this is common with soft news as their goal is to entertain rather than inform and due to the light nature of the content they create they need to ensure readers are interested. Soft news articles also tend to use many more pictures, unlike the previous articles that I have looked at that had three images, this article contains eleven, it is common for soft news to use more images as the stories are often quite lack lustre and cannot attract readers solely through the text, soft news also tends to concern topics aimed more towards younger generations who do not want to spend much time reading. The images are all comparing how the celebrities looked on their Instagram compared to how they look on that same day on a picture taken by somebody else, the entire article is speculation and opinion with a lack of actual facts to backup their points. The language is much more colloquial and less formal as the demographic are not looking for an intelligent eye opening article, instead a quick read on a celebrity they may know, it uses phrases like "The presenter has been showing off her svelte bod in figure-hugging gowns". Something else that this article does unlike the hard news is actually links profiles on the celebrities they talk about, this use of Web 2.0 technologies is another piece of evidence supporting the younger target demographic.

http://www.skysports.com/football/liverpool-vs-everton/373250

This article is a review of a football match on Sky Sports, the article is about a game between Liverpool and Everton. One thing to take note of is both of the soft news articles are significantly longer than the hard news articles, this is because hard news lacks opinion and is primarily focused on the facts, other than this they don't have much more to say on a topic, whilst soft news includes the writes opinions whilst also sometimes mentioning other opinions and discussing them. The headline for this article is "Liverpool 1-1 Everton: Wayne Rooney penalty snatches draw in Merseyside derby" The first thing this article wants to do is tell you the score, as that is its main focus whilst the rest of the headline is again supposed to draw in readers. The article actually remains quite unbiased, however this is due to Sky Sports aiming to keep an unbiased reputation, however since this is a review it features many agreeable opinions that almost all would comply with, soft news like this can sometimes be very one-sided. This article is also 3rd person which is again due to Sky Sports' reputation as many much reviews would be a first person account from the writers experience when watching the match. This articles language tends to stay professional and avoids using expletive language, where as a more opinionated review might use expletive language to make aggressive comments on some players performance in the game. Another feature that is featured in soft news and especially in reviews is things like lists, this article lists players ratings in the match, again this is all opinion and is considered a trustworthy source due to Sky Sports' reputation. The article towards the end swaps from its 3rd person perspective into entire interviews with players and managers to get their personal after match report, they also embedded videos of the interview so people can watch them instead of reading them, this is something you see often in soft news articles and would probably not be featured in hard news too often.

Compare and contrast diferrent media platforms- M1

Sources

Newspapers

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/gallery/2016/jun/24/newspapers-brexit-front-pages-eu

Huffington post article

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-google-what-is-the-eu_uk_576d4f06e4b0232d331ded24

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/eu-referendum-results-age-data-young_uk_576cd7d6e4b0232d331dac8f?utm_hp_ref=uk

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaCrbwtr1zk

Tabloid Vs Broadsheet-P1

I will be comparing how The Mirror and the Telegraph report the same story. The articles I have looked at are discussing Jeremy Corbyn’s possible involvement with a soviet secret service. Before even reading the articles I know that The Mirror is a tabloid and is aimed at a C2DE audience meaning it style may use simple language and not be as formal as The Telegraph which is a broadsheet aimed at an ABC1 audience.

The headlines for both of these articles tell us a lot about the political stance of the newspapers. The Telegraph titled this article “Labour MPs deny spy's claims they were paid £10k each by Czech secret service and threw him a London leaving party” The Telegraph is fairly formal with its headline unlike the Mirror which titles its article “Jeremy Corbyn was not a 'Soviet collaborator' and this Czech secret files chief can prove it” This headline seems very much in favour of Corbyn and is trying to defend him whilst also leaving intrigue for readers to find out about the secret files. Another factor we should look at is their small tagline under the headline, the Mirror says “He wasn't a spy, and the documents prove it” This very simply reiterates the headline whereas the Telegraph says “Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone have denied claims they were paid by the Czech spy, and any involvement in an alleged farewell party. Mr McDonnell is only accused of meeting with a KGB agent, which he denies.” This is much more informal as it uses names and elaborates on the headline with more brief information, both of these are evidence of its style of paper, the tabloid (Mirror) uses much more simple language whereas the broadsheet (Telegraph) goes into more detail. Another point of comparison is the mention of disregarding the accusations. The Mirror seems to base its entire article debunking all accusations and focuses on the files mentioned in the headline, at one point they quote the head of the Czech secret service and say “"The files we have on him are kept in a file that starts with the identification number 1. Secret collaborators were allocated numbers that started with the number 4. If he had been successfully recruited as an informer, then his person of interest file would have been closed and a new one would have been opened, and that would have started with the number 4." Considering this is the tabloid it seems to use a lot more evidence than the broadsheet as the Telegraph only mentions this in one small sentence, it says “Svetlana Ptacnikova, the head of the Czech Security Forces Archive, which keeps documents from the now-dissolved StB said that the files did not show that he was registered as an agent.” This is the only mention of the files in the entire article which contrasts the Mirror’s large focus on this argument. This is evidence of each newspapers style of reporting as well as their political opinions  


Sources
The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/18/labour-mps-deny-spys-claims-paid-10k-czech-secret-service-threw/
The Mirror:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-not-soviet-collaborator-12056376

Citizen Journalism Vs Tabloid-P2

Citizen Journalism is when the general public contribute to the news, with web 2.0 technologies this can be done in many different forms. Due to the availability of citizen Journalism the phrase “Prosumer” was coined to describe when someone takes the role of both producer and consumer.

One-way average consumers can interact with news is through the comments section, most online platforms today have a comment section that is available to all, here you can post thoughts on particular threads and articles, comments work especially well with news as it gives people the opportunity to share their opinion on particular stories as well as have discussions with other commenters which gets people more involved with today’s news. A comment section is a very popular feature to online posts and appears most commonly on social media platforms. Social media is another form of citizen journalism, the best example is Twitter, Twitter allows you not only to follow news providers such as BBC news, but you can also retweet, share, comment and @ people to show your opinion or share news with your followers as all of these things will appear on your follower’s feeds. So Citizen Journalism not only allows anyone to report the news it also helps with the distribution of news. With so many news providers existing today it can be hard to find a reliable source, but thanks to Citizen Journalism it’s much easier for a consumer to find a reliable source that they can refer to for all their news, for example blogs are a large part of citizen Journalism as it allows anyone to set up their own platform and report whatever news they want whenever they want, it is very common for consumers to find a blogger they trust and that blogger may become their most reliable news outlet.

An example of Citizen Journalism is Wiki news; Wiki news is an online website with the tagline “The Free News Source You Can Write” This is a platform that any person with access to the internet can use to create news, any user can create or edit an article that does not break their guidelines, which includes no biased opinions, making Wiki news a highly reliable source as each article is reviewed to ensure everything you read is factual and unbiased. I am going to compare the same story in one of their articles to a tabloid article on how it presents its content. These are the articles I chose.

Wiki news:

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/England:_Multi-storey_carpark_in_Liverpool_gutted_by_fire,_1,300_vehicles_destroyed

BBC News:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-42572999

The first thing to compare is the headlines, the BBC titled its article “Liverpool Waterfront car park fire: Site's security stepped up” This focuses on the community on the day, mentioning the security shows that the interest of this article is interested in the helpful acts of people, whereas the Wiki news article was titled “Multi-storey carpark in Liverpool gutted by fire, 1,300 vehicles destroyed” This is very formal and even states a fact in the headline, it’s very straight to the point and keeps the focus on the event rather than the community. The Wiki news article overall is much more factual, it gives us multiple statistics and figures such as what time the fire started, how hot the fire peaked at, and even how many fire fighters where needed to deal with the fire as well as what equipment they needed. The BBC article is completely different as the only statistic it gives throughout the entire article is the 1,300 destroyed vehicles, the rest of the article discusses what happened and the reactions of the people, it talks about how “Liverpool City Council said it had received numerous requests from emotional people who had sentimental belongings in the multi-storey car park.” As expected from a tabloid it focuses on appealing to the average viewers’ emotions rather than every detail of the event, it also brings up the security more than once with comments like “The authority said it was providing 24-hour security around the site and putting up hoardings for public safety and to protect the structure from strong winds.” Again talking about the people helping rather than the facts. Another thing to compare is the images used, since the wiki news article was created by an average user there is no images of the actual event just images of the location of the car park as well as a fire engine, whereas the BBC article was created by a professional journalist who has reached out to the council to get images. They also embedded a video of the fire that was recorded by a bystander.

News Corp VS Trinity Mirror- P1

Mirror Group vs News Corp

Mirror Group

The Mirror Group is more commonly known as Trinity Mirror, it is the largest conglomerate in the Uk with subsidiaries that produce content in newspapers, magazines and digital articles. The parent company owns around 240 papers across all the UK. Some of their main subsidiaries include:

The Sunday Mirror

The Sunday Mail

The Daily record

The Western Mail

The People

News Corp

News Corp is a different Conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch, he is the CEO of Murdoch Family. They have a much further reach than Trinity mirror as they are an international news company, they also have subsidiaries in both print and online production and have many subsidiaries such as:

The Wall Street Journal

The Times

The Sunday Times

The Sun

Comparing news consumption

In the modern day we have many ways of consuming the news, companies try to have as far as a reach as possible so they utilize every method they can. Being part of a larger conglomerate such as news corps means it can be easier to get your news product out there and it’s easier to reach your target audience. However, the issue with being a part of a conglomerate is the information can sometimes be manipulated and influenced to suit the parent company’s opinions.