The Paradise Papers story coverage

The Paradise Papers story coverage

On Monday 6th November, the main headlines covered leaked documents revealing the financial details of the super-rich. It outlined how many were allowed to keep money outside the UK in order to avoid paying tax.

The Guardian- 'Queen's cash invested in controversial retailer accused of exploiting the poor.' 

The words highlighted show how the Guardian uses negative language to portray their ideology of socialism. They believe that it was unfair of the rich to keep money through avoiding taxes, as the poorer people are paying their taxes for the NHS for example, which is low on funding, whilst these people are spending what could help the UK on private jets. This is how the Guardian portrays its ideology of socialism effectively.  If there was no free press, then the newspapers wouldn't be able to print stories like this which present figure heads in a negative light.

• Write up a description of the main differences between the two front pages from The Guardian and The Daily Mail, looking at both conventions and how the stories have been presented to the reader. The Guardian is in a Berliner format, whilst The Daily Mail is in a traditional tabloid layout which means that the Daily Mail has most of the front page covered by the headline, whilst the Guardian has a lot more copy at the bottom of it compared to The Daily Mail. Both of the images on the front of the newspapers are large, yet the Guardian's picture has to do with their main story, whilst the Daily Mail's picture is to do with another story that is inside the newspaper. The Guardian also uses two main colours on its front page, and as they are contrasting colours, it makes the main story stand out. The Daily Mail uses a range of colours, and there does not look to be a specific colour scheme going on. The ideologies of the newspapers also differ, with the Guardian being left wing and the Daily Mail being right wing, so the stories will have different perspectives. This will mean that one paper will write about the story in more detail than the other, as the story applies to them more, as their agenda reflects their political stance. 

• Write a paragraph outlining why you think the Guardian created a series of news articles looking at the same issue and how that may reflect the newspapers political ideology and news values. The Guardian does not move onto other stories as quickly as the Daily Mail as they know that their readers are more likely to want to know more information about stories that will involve their ideologies, and as the Guardian is a left wing newspaper, they may want to focus on the big stories that involve the left wing more than other stories that are not as important. Also as they write more articles on this one subject, it may start to be at the front of their readers minds, and the opinions that they put in the articles could start to become those of the readers as well. This is called the Cultivation Theory.

• Look at the Mirror. The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and the Independent online newspaper and consider what you learn about these two publications from their versions of the story and the front page conventions.  Most of the other newspapers didn't really show any bias towards the story, whilst the Guardian and The Daily Mail showed their strong ideologies through the headline that they gave the stories. This is because the other newspapers tend to be less influenced by their political stance, so people may be more likely to read the articles from these non biased newspapers, as they will not be subject to having their opinions changed through the cultivation theory.
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• Look at the online versions of these stories via Mail Online and The Guardian website. Compare and contrast their coverage. Use the sites to find out as much as you can about the story, so you fully understand it. What other media elements do the two websites provide readers (e.g.: audio or video clips, hyperlinks to other sites or connected stories). The Guardian and The Daily Mail both have the articles in great detail on their websites, yet they also have videos and interactive links etc. The Guardian continues using the colour yellow theme running through the articles about the Paradise papers, which makes them easy to recognize. The Guardian has covered this story in a lot more detail than the Daily Mail, as it appeals to their left wing audience, whilst the Daily Mail may not have written about it if they didn't have to, but as the story was important, they did write about but with a more right wing stance. 

• Look at social media sites and explain how you think they encourage readers to interact with the story. The stories are linked on a post on social media like twitter which makes the readers more likely to read the articles as they are easily accessible. Because the followers of their media accounts may just scroll through quickly, if they see an article that interests them, they are more likely to read it if it is there as a link, rather than them having to search for it.