A comparison of tabloid and broadsheet newspapers Essay

To understand the subject of this essay, I thought it would help to briefly look at the history and background of newspapers, because I believe this gradually influences people’s decisions on buying a paper today. In earlier years, the majority of people buying newspapers were all well educated, middle – class intellectuals. As a result of this many papers actually tended to follow the broadsheet format. Most people that bought a newspaper would have full intention of reading from front to back. Most papers had between four and nine pages with a lot of columns and very small print; there were not many pictures and very little graphics. This was generally because of the lack of technology available to the publishers and their printers. As time progressed, so did the technology that went into the newspapers. With this improvement in technology this enables the publishers to focus on more specific readership. In a newspaper you can find that they can now devote sectors of the newspaper to individual interests, at the same time as having more illustrations and advertisements. We investigated how tabloids and broadsheets have appeared to combine these new ideas, but somehow still have different techniques, writing styles and format. We did this by using interviews and surveys to help us gain the results we wanted. To gain further understanding of the type of people that read tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, the pupils in our class carried out a survey. The principle was to find out if there were any links between our research and the class survey, it helped us gain more knowledge on the time that papers are read during the day and what days they are tended to be read on. When the survey was complete we collected the results to find that there was quite an even spread of readers for both the tabloid paper and the broadsheet paper. Another interesting fact was that mainly broadsheets were read on the weekend rather than the working week. I recognize that this must be because of the size and depth of the broadsheet which becomes a immediate fault of the paper has it makes it very hard for somebody going to work on the train or bus to read a large paper such as ‘The Telegraph’ in such tight compact spaces. Our class also carried interviews with their friends and family to try and find out the reason behind this predilection. In the majority of cases, the time available and the content of the newspaper were concerns. Many people believed that a broadsheet were more detailed and focused on finance and politics, whereas tabloid papers tended to be more light-hearted and entertaining. There were a lot more gossip columnists and many pages devoted to entertainment and celebrities featured in ‘The Sun’. As I expected the size of the newspapers were a big matter into deciding which paper someone would buy. According to the interviewees, broadsheets were understandably an inconvenient size if they were to be read on a coffee brake or a journey as they were just too big. Tabloid papers were popular because of the advantage of there size as they can be read at spare moments during the day and contained a television guide. Personally I tend to read newspapers at the weekend and the members of my family generally make the choice of paper, I enjoy reading a tabloid a lot more than I do a broadsheet because broadsheets cover a large quantity of business and finance and I am not interested in these subjects. I enjoy reading ‘The Sun’ as it contains a lot of sport news and celebrity news. Tabloid papers in my opinion are a lot easier to read as u don’t have to take a lot of time reading each article like you do in the broadsheet newspapers. Before we actually started to examine individual articles, we made some general assertions concerning the papers contents. We all noticed that there were a surprisingly large amount of adverts in the broadsheet newspaper, which included a completely covered double-page spread on just adverts. A â€Å"British Airways† advert, covered a page of the â€Å"Daily Telegraph† the size made it eye-catching and very effective to the reader. For further exploration we compared two articles, which at the time were concerning the situation in Saudi Arabia. The first article was featured in â€Å"The Sun†, entitled, â€Å"Saudi Aid†. The second article was found in â€Å"The Daily Telegraph† entitled, â€Å"Arab states back Bush over Iraq†. My immediate observation was the difference and contrast in headlines. The tabloid headline was much shorter than that of the broadsheet, therefore the information given was. â€Å"Saudi Aid† gave the reader a suggestion of the articles content, but did not make any kind of effort to enhance on the subject. On the other hand â€Å"The Telegraph† was more informative and had a much more detailed headline, â€Å"Arab states back Bush over Iraq†. This headline refers to a specific incident which is very straight forward it also includes one of the most well known names in the world, this is a clever way of using someone’s name involved in the issue to draw in the reader the also tone suggests controversy. â€Å"The Sun† followed its brief headline with a more detailed summary, giving us further amplification on the subject. â€Å"The Telegraph† on the other hand had a sub headline of â€Å"Way cleared for countdown to war†. Again the focus of the piece was narrowed down to ass impact on their first headline. The sub headline included and extremely emotive phrase, â€Å"Countdown to War†. This gives no definite answer to the question most people were asking themselves at the time, it just leaves the possibility that it could happen in the future if the situation deteriorates. â€Å"The Sun† also included a sub headline in its article. â€Å"Saudis to aid attack on Iraq† again this repeats the word ‘aid’ from the headline but this time expanding on the content of the article. The reporter actually uses rhyme, which increases the articles appeal, because it becomes captivating and memorable. In continuing to study the format of the article, I noticed that the front pages of both pieces were very different. â€Å"The Telegraph’s† report was split into four columns, with an enlarged quote dividing the second column. In this article there was clearly more writing, and whilst I could perceive a summary, it was not highlighted in any way, like â€Å"The Sun’s† report, which had a summary in bold type and a sub heading of ‘Weapons’ halfway through the first column, such use of a sub headline created drama and tension. The summary uses colloquial language, and emotive writing such as ‘the Saudis fear they will never be safe while Saddam rules’. With added patriotism, the summary lures the reader to read on through the article, to reach the main point of the piece. Unlike the broadsheet article, there was a picture featured in the tabloid newspaper. The picture was of Jack Straw and by adding a picture the information in the article is authentic and may entice the reader to look more closely at the piece, and maybe value the reporter’s opinion more. Another creative effect is â€Å"The Suns† use of italics. By placing a chosen phrase or paragraph in italics, the reader’s attention is drawn to the chosen area, showing that the specific phrase is important, and so the reader should pay attention to it. The general tone of † the suns† article is informal throughout the piece. The reporter remains biased and doesn’t believe that the possibility of war may be resolved. The piece in â€Å"The Telegraph† takes an objective style and presents both sides of the argument, and continually stating that there is no definite war. The miscellany in reporting styles also includes the use of more formal language with words such as ‘repercussions’. I would presume that the readers of a broadsheet newspaper are more middle-class. This is a generalisation but that the fact that there is more business, finance and culture in the broadsheet newspaper. There is one similarity between the articles it is that they both include the national security adviser â€Å"Conddeezza Rice†. Overall the broadsheet newspaper includes more concept language and is rather informal, whilst the tabloid newspaper has short headlines with a catchy theme to it, instead of a more sophisticated and simple headlines brought to us by the broadsheet newspapers.