Headline options

The front page headlines of the Daily Mail are usually short and snappy, then being followed by a longer sub heading to further explain what the story is relating to. I have come up with some options for my article, each being a separate combination to complement eachother...

“A COWARDLY ACT OF HATRED AND REJECTION”

Teenage boys go on a rampage through their own school, shooting thirty-two victims dead, then committing suicide.

“TEENAGE RAMPAGE”

Threesome leaves a path of death and destruction through secondary school

“WE ADMIT THEY COULD HAVE BEEN STOPPED”

Police confess they didn’t do all they could to stop three teenage boys from shooting through a school, as their planning is displayed on a blogging website

The headlines will be one of these or very much similar to one of these, and maybe even a combination of all three.

Image sketches for article

The image for the headline/front page will be a poignant image of two people embracing outside the school, maybe crying but definitely looking very shocked and bewildered. This is to capture a personal moment like the Daily Mail likes to feature. The simple sketch below displays how I want to capture the image, angle wise...

The internal image will be of a more eerie and intimate image of the school. It will show a deserted corridor with maybe some tape or signs towards the end. It will be a spooky contrast to what went on just hours before. If possible there could be some forensic investigations going on towards the end, this will add more interest to the images.

Also included will be a map of the school with routes drawn out and other information indicated on it in different colours. This will need to be drawn to scale and accurately reproduced by myself.

Draft of article

This is the first draft of my article text to be featured on the first page and then carried on to pages 2 and 3...

A group of three teenagers, aged 16 to 18 have opened fire on fellow students and teachers at a school in Bexleyheath, Kent. Thirty-five people have died, including themselves, following their rampage which according to a discovered “blog website” was fuelled by their “hatred for society and continuing struggle to fit in”. Two sixteen year old boys [NAME] and [NAME] were accompanied by 18 year old [NAME] on their killing spree yesterday.

The rampage started at around 9:10am GMT when the first gunshots were heard by teachers in the main hall. The first phone call to the local police reporting of “large noises sounding like gun shots or bombs” was recorded at 9.18am, just 8 minutes after the first shot was fired, and the first victim fell.

The group entered the school through the front doors, which usually aren’t used by students, at 9:09am and within a minute their first victim, 45 year old office worker Mandy Drew, had been shot through the forehead and died instantly. This caused significant alarm to the pupils who were travelling to their first lessons as chaos broke out and children of all ages started to flee to ‘safety’. “I remember seeing Mrs Drew fall from her chair and then glancing towards the front of her desk and just seeing a gun, I knew then that something was wrong and that I had to run” recounted Sophie Adams, aged just 11 and in her first year of secondary school. With the now flurry of fleeing students it was seemingly easy for the threesome to pass through the crowd unidentified and swiftly. They moved up the nearest flight of stairs to enter the staffroom, there were approximately 20 members of staff in the room at the time of their entrance, and within 2 minutes four of them were dead, five of them injured due to shattered windows and shrapnel from surrounding furniture being hit with bullets. 27 year old Mathematics teachers Jessica Shaw took refuge under the table at the back of the room and tells us of her terror; “You hear about these events on the news and just take in all the facts and information, sympathising with the victims but it’s not until you have two six foot boys standing in the same room as you holding (the location of the other perpetrator is unknown at this point) handguns to your fellow employees temples that you realise how horrific it really is. I have never been so scared for my life and for others as I was in that room and I know that it changed my life forever, I will never trust anyone in the same way again”.

It is believed that said two then joint Haseem back in the corridor where evidence of ammunition and bullets suggest he was reloading or having trouble with his handgun. They then shot seven girls on their journey into the canteen, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their path. Kent county police believe that a homemade bomb, carried in a rucksack, was then detonated within the small confines of the canteen, this however wasn’t as destructive as the boys had hoped as one witness claims “They seemed to get angry about the failure of the bomb, it didn’t do anything apart from create a lot of smoke…that’s when they started shooting randomly into the smoke, killing whoever was in their way”. This proved to be their most successful and fatal move as they managed to kill 15 people in the space of a 6 minute shooting spree. However it is believed that the boys thought they had killed a lot more than they actually had, due to many passing out from the toxic fumes coming from the detonated bomb in the corner. Many hid under the tables and escaped with minor injuries, however the mental damages are sure to be much more apparent as the reality of what has happened sinks in further.

The boys then went on their final journey through the school, “passing bodies without a flicker of remorse” shooting a further 4 pupils, both male and female and a member of staff, believed to have crawled from the staff room down two flights of stairs to use the office phone to get help. The three boys exited the building through the front door at approximately 9:52am GMT, they lined up on the steps leading to the office and in perfect synchronisation each lifted their guns to their temples, pulled their triggers and shot themselves, all falling to the floor in a heap, at exactly the same time. This was captured on camera by several students and passers-by, but more eerily it was seen by many of the students and teachers who had taken refuge by exiting the school through the front or side doors. It had taken the police 3 and a half minutes to arrive at the scene but the SWAT team hadn’t arrived in time to see this. The local police force weren’t allowed to enter the building as they were unsure as to what was behind the doors and what was to become of them if they entered, the building had also been put into lock down, nobody was allowed in or out, despite the pupils and teachers fleeing from fire exits and lower windows.

The three boys are believed to have been friend since they started the school in year 7 and have always had positive reports, with one teacher describing {NAME] as a “delightful student to teach”. They have no previous criminal convictions, with one of them having a formal warning for being rowdy on the streets back in 2009. However further investigations at [NAME’S] house has led the police search to a note card with a simple website address scrawled on and left on his pillow. This website is in a blog format and has seemingly been set up 2 years ago by the trio. It documents their preparation for this spree and gives every detail, almost compiling a storyboard for how they went about planning this horrific episode. Inspector Dawn Potter released a statement at 11:03pm GMT last night stating “We have closed our searching of the perpetrators houses and have moved our attention to our findings on the internet. The website has been taken down and all traces of it removed from the general public. This is a very concerning matter we have in our hands and we wish to deal with it in the best way possible”. She was later criticised for not mentioning any of the thirty two other victims and their families.

The school has been closed to allow for the forensic teams to enter and for the police to gather their evidence, it is unknown as to how long this will take and what damage has been done to school property. However it has been rumoured that the school will now remain shut for the rest of the term, with some students being transferred and taught in a different location. It is unknown as to how long this procedure is going to take and whether all students will be involved or just ones with upcoming exams.

Families of the victims are still being informed, with lists of survivors’ names being put up on a website. This is obviously a very worrying time for parents as their child’s name may not be up on the website yet due to there being approximately 2000 pupils present yesterday. Parent Jenny Humphries told us this morning “I didn’t know [my daughter] was alive until 7 hours after the news first broke, that was solely the worse 7 hours of waiting in my whole life. I can’t imagine what people must be feeling now if their child’s name isn’t up yet”. A police representative issued the following notice “We are doing all we can, and as quickly as possible, to inform all parents of their child’s whereabouts, however this may take longer than anticipated given the circumstances and the emergence of other information being given at any time. We respect that this is a hard time and cannot express our sympathy enough, however we ask for your patience if you wish for this to be done thoroughly and to the best of our ability”. A representative from the school is yet to comment.

Further layout of article (Pages 2-3)

Having studied the articles once they have developed onto (usually) pages 2 and 3 I have laid out a demonstration of what I want my article to look like inside the newspaper. This is following the codes and conventions of the Daily Mail with a few ideas from other newspapers I have seen.

• The blue box situated at the top will hold a further headline which is longer and more specific to the story, this is featured in nearly all the Daily Mails that I looked at.
• The orange L shaped box is where the story will be carried on from the front page, this will start with the usual "continued from page 1" and will then continue from where it was left.
• The green boxes indicate where the images are going to be placed, the three small ones being images of the shooters, the large one being a scene in the school and then the strip down the right hand side is going to be plans and maps of the school and route to shooter took, just like in the Guardian and Mail that I looked at for the cruise liner sinking.
• Finally the red box will include a little summary of the story to grab the readers attention and to inform them as to what the story is about, because the headlines may not give off that much information about the event and so can offer some further information.

Article plan.

I have decided that my article is going to be based on a shooter much like the events in Norway that I studied. However the shooter will be in a school, much like seen before but this will be large scale and widely reported, this will therefore mean there would be a competition for the best and most eye catching story between most tabloids.
Introduction:

• Will highlight the background information of the location of the school and the perpetrators of the shooting. These are likely to be a gang or group of boys from a surrounding area. 
• It will then give a brief description of what happened, giving some information and shocking facts but not completely giving away the story. Therefore making the audience continue. The story will then continue onto the next page with the full story.

Body of article:

• The main body of the article will go into the details of the attack, the full account of the story and step by step accounts of the events.
• It will also cover quotes and interviews from teachers, pupils, families of the victims and from members of the local police and Scotland Yard.
• It will also have details of what is being done following the attacks and how the community is dealing with the grief etc.
• There will then be a feature on the shooters, their backgrounds, their upbringings and families. The public usually like to know every detail about them so this will be included.
• There will then be information on the victims and stories about them, with comments from their classmates, friends and teachers.
• There will be quotes enlarged in places across the pages as to draw in the reader and make them read what that quite is referring to.
• Included will be references and comparisons to previous events like this such as Columbine etc.

Conclusion:

• Discuss what is now being done at the site of the school and how the families are dealing with their losses.
• Probably include information for a planned funeral service and what mourners can do for the lost lives.

In general the article will be set out in a simple format, with an equal text to image ration. It will also contain more facts than opinion and will have informative diagrams and map to give the audience further information.

Page layout

 Following my decision to use the Daily Mail as a style model I found it helpful to study various examples of the newspaper with different stories to view how they are laid out. A few examples of the Daily Mail front pages are below.

As displayed above they all have a similar layout and following this investigation I came up with the following layout which I will stick to for my article.

• I kept it simple with the sections clearly divided and so it doesn't get too complicated. Also I didn't use overlapping images or anything like that as it could get a bit overwhelming, especially if the images are complicated.
• I kept the text to a minimum as this wouldn't attract a reader as much from a far away distance and a picture can say a lot about the story. They can also tell much more of the story too.
• I decided to put the headline at the top as despite previously saying that the twist on the Guardian article with the smaller and lower down headline being a modern twist this isn't conventional of the Daily Mail and it wouldn't be true to their usual style.
• I will also attempt to create the Daily Mail header and that will be placed where it always is, at the top in the centre.

Style model decision.

Following the analysis of the Daily Mail and the Guardian I have to make a decision as to which newspaper I shall use as my style model. I shall go about this weighing up the positives and negatives of both.

The Daily Mail:

• Uses a more informal tone for their stories and makes the reader feel more familiar with their writers, this may be a techniques used to build a fan base or gain more readers.
• Has more eye catching images and uses more controversial pictures within their coverage. This adds more risk factor but also adds much more interest and depth to the story.
• I also prefer the way this newspaper is set out with quite a simple layout but this is effective as it is easy to read and easy to understand, whereas with the Guardian I found it hard to find where the story carries on which throws off the reader and loses the flow of the story.
• I preferred the way that the Daily Mail picked one main story to feature on the front cover and not to combine many stories onto one page so it didn't get confusing. This also focused on their most important story of the day.

The Guardian:

• I liked the way that the Guardian, being a broadsheet newspaper, could fit more than one story on the front page which could allow the target audience to be wider as they could include a variety of stories within the front page with very different subject matters.
• The large space on the front page also allows for the images used to be much larger, however for this story I don't feel like they took advantage of this idea as they could have had much more coverage on the front concerning the biggest story in the world at that point.
• I like the way the Guardian hasn't followed the conventional headline at the top of the page in massive writing like all the rest do as it makes it stand out in the stand of newspapers and adds a modern twist to.
• I preferred the way that this retelling of the story contained more fact than opinion (which isn't the case for the Daily Mail) as it makes the reader trust the story more and also allows them to feel more informed.

Ideas to take from both newspapers:

• I really like the use of diagrams that both newspapers used. It provides an insight for the reader as it helps them to understand what was going on and gives a more in depth and interesting approach to telling the story.
• I also like the images to text ratio of both with them having almost half and half for the images and text.
• I also like the variety of images, from their use of images taken during the event and then the aftermath and following, with the investigation taking place and the searching for the bodies etc

Decision: I have decided to use the Daily Mail as my style model as it would be more appropriate as I feel I could grasp their style of writing better as a more informal tone is used. However I will be gaining some inspiration from the Guardian example as it has some good ideas and examples of how to relay a story, with the most efficiency. 

Language used within the Guardian article.

The language of an article can have a large impact on how opinion is portrayed, how the audience interprets that opinion and how the reader feels when reading it. It can add influence to a situation and can lead the reader to adopt the journalists feelings if such a strong positive or negative vibe is sent out. Analysing two very different articles can give me an idea of how I wish to style my article and can help me to pick up tips on writing an article to a specific style.

"The familiar accoutrements of a cruise holiday were all there: the sun loungers, the tennis court and a towering water slide painted bright yellow and blue"

After

"But the tennis court was nearly vertical; the sunloungers were piled up against the deck rail, and the slide was jutting out almost horizontally into the channel"

Language used within the Daily Mail article

The language of an article can have a large impact on how opinion is portrayed, how the audience interprets that opinion and how the reader feels when reading it. It can add influence to a situation and can lead the reader to adopt the journalists feelings if such a strong positive or negative vibe is sent out. Analysing two very different articles can give me an idea of how I wish to style my article and can help me to pick up tips on writing      an article to a specific style.

"Prosecutors described Schettino's handling of the giant craft as inept"

The Daily Mail uses far less text than the Guardian and more of the visual aids to help tell the story and inform their audience. The journalists use hard hitting opinions and facts to really emphasise the horror and gain the attention but also the sympathy of the audience.  They use personal quotes from survivors which gives the report a more realistic feel to it and it gives the audience an awareness of what really happened. They use real life stories such as that of British dancer Rose Metcalf who was ‘among the last to be lifted off the ship’ to do this as well. 

"Survivors were left to swim for their lives and shin down rope ladders during a terrifying 'Titanic-like' escape"

The writers also use techniques such as likening the event to others that have previously happened and are well known. For example Rebecca Evans, writer of this specific story has likened the evnts to that of the Titanic, and everyone knows about the Titanic and how horrific it was. This makes the audience again, realise how horrific the event was as it provides them with something to compare it to. 

"The crash has shocked all those who enjoy the multi-billion-pound cruise industry and believe they are holidaying in absolute safety"

The article also gives the readers a possible link to what is happening and they could possibly be the people who 'enjoy the multi-billion-pound cruise industry' an could make them reconsider their views on the situation. If I was a reader who was to enjoy the cruise industry regularly then this article would definitely make me reconsider my opinions as it clearly is not only against the captain of the cruise liner and the company as a whole but is giving off a negative vibe towards the whole cruising idea. With the comparisons to the Titanic and the negative words and phrases used such as 'furious', 'disgusting' and 'stricken ship' it is enough to put anyone off travelling by cruise liner ever again.

With this being highlighted it is clear that the Daily Mail depend more on their own opinions to tell the story as oppose to the facts that are true. this allows them to shape what the reader believes and can have a large influence. It is almost suggesting that the audience is passive and cannot form their own opinion, this could have a very negative impact on society if all magazines and newspapers were like this as nobody would have formed their own opinions and are just likely to adopt whatever is being fed to them...

Deconstruction of the Guardian

Despite this story being the main headline of all newspapers for the week following the incident I don't feel like the Guardian put a lot of coverage on this story, it is especially sparse in the first edition after the event and just doesn't have the coverage that it was given in other newspapers, especially so soon after it.

The front page of the Guardian on the 16th January 2012 contains a large header photo of the Costa Concordia cruise liner, the day after it sank off the coast of Italy. The newspaper simply has an image of the ship, no words or explanation as it is followed by a completely different story that isn't related to the picture. It then simply has "3-5" at the bottom corner of the photo, giving the reader the pages they need to read the story.

When one turns to pages 4-5 they are greeted with 3D diagrams and their own interpretations of what happened to the ship, theirs are much less animated compared to those of the Daily Mail and they have kept them simpler, perhaps to make it easier to understand. there is a lot more text for the story from the Guardian however in a similar fashion to the Daily Mail they have photos captured by eye witnesses and people from the incident, therefore making the audience feel more involved and giving them more of a perspective on what was going on.

They also use small quotes from interviews and place them in a larger font around the page, having read these interesting insights the audience is going to be intrigued and read on further. the layout of the Guardian is much more simple compared to that of the Daily Mail, which at times can be quite busy whereas the Guardian is simple; with a plain square image at the top centre of the page and text surrounding it. It isn't too colourful and overwhelming for the reader.

Deconstruction of the Daily Mail

This image displays the front page of the Daily Mail, published on 16th January 2012. The main story is regarding the sinking of the Costa Concordia, a cruise liner which sank after hitting rocks off the Italian coast. I chose this story as it was widely reported and was likely to be in all major newspapers that day. The front page shows a hard hitting image which shows the passengers desperately attempting to escape and save their own lives. The rhetorical question for a headline hits hard as it causes the audience to ask the same question and then with reading further on, hoping to find the answer. The main story is really concerning the captain of the ship and whether or not the ship was innocently drifted off course or whether the captain played a large part in the steering towards the small island, resulting in the collision with the shallow depths.

The layout of the page places the main focus on the image and what is happening on the boat, however the contrasting colours of the headline also causes it to stand out and become another eye catching part of the feature. The inset picture allows for more interest and scope for the cover as it adds interest and further information to the story.

There is hardly any writing on this page, however when the newspaper is opened the story carries on to provide a much more in depth account and analysis on the story.

The layout of the first page of the report is very much centred around the images and attempting to inform the audience with as much visual content as possible so they can get a real idea as to what is happening. This is using visual aids to inform the audience as oppose to using all the writing which can sometimes be not as entertaining.

The next page then uses an image of a vulnerable mother and child trying to flee to safety, and what is apparent is that every new pages has a different headline, displaying that the newspaper is covering all aspects of the story and adding scope to what they are reporting. The use of the vulnerable woman and child creates sympathy from the reader as they feel sorry for the ordeal, willing them to read the story further. I think the layout of this article is clever as the photos used spur the reader to carry on as they want to find out what the story is related to the images, and the more interesting/controversial the image is likely to attract the audience more.

The article then spreads onto the next page but this time the article is centred around a 3D diagram of the ship and various others indicating the sequence of events. This adds interest to the article because as the reader I felt much more informed and in the know due to their explanations with images. This is involving the audience as they get to understand the event with images and diagrams which are much more literal and visually easier to understand.

Deconstructions

To gain an idea as to how popular newspapers publish their stories on major events I decided to take advantage of the current event of the sinking of the Italian cruise ship: the Costa Concordia. I have picked the Daily Mail and The Guardian as they both have different views and with one being a broadsheet newspaper and the other being on the other end of the spectrum in terms of political views and how they portray their stories. I will then use these deconstructions to determine which newspaper of the two will be my style model.

Images used in Daily Mail reports.

Above displayed are the images used by The Daily Mail during their reporting on the Norway Shooting. When comparing these images to others published by separate news companies these images are much more private and quite intrusive. The use of the images with the victims and destruction are very graphic and close up, maybe used to grab the attention of the reader but it is maybe too detailed for a newspaper read by many. Also shown are images of the victims weeping families/friends and this could invade privacy too. However it could be used to make the audience feel more involved, sympathetic or to help them understand the scale of this tragedy.

Images used in Guardian reports.

    

    

    

        

Above are  several examples of images provided by The Guardian newspaper when reporting the Norway Shootings in July. As you can see they use shots that aren't too close up and this adds variety to the shot as more can be included and a wider shot is likely to include more of the scene. I feel these images are effective in portraying the scene that is unfolding and informing the audience who aren't there to witness the events in person.