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.
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