Monthly Archives: April 2013

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News Analysis

NEWS ANALYSIS

The three articles reported a story about actress Catherine Tyldesley, who plays Eva Price in a popular Manchester soap opera called Coronation Street. The actress went to Dubai with her boyfriend over the Christmas film break. When she returned she was worried that the henna tattoos she got over the holiday might cause problems regarding film continuity shots for the soap opera. She tweeted for advice on how to get henna tattoos off and this is how the media found the story. All three articles were written within a space of four days.
The first article in the Mirror ironically mirrors a press release because the bulk of the article is made up of quotations and the way the information is presented lacks a formal structure. There is a clear reiteration of the facts in the article as the first four paragraphs state the same facts in a different way. For example, the author uses several terms for henna; hand decoration, henna tattoos, markings and temporary tattoos. The author also includes facts that are not related to the story such as the age of the actress and her boyfriends’ name. “News is factual information that is new to its audience. It must be relevant to, and affect, that audience. It is about people. It often involves conflict, is dramatic and out of the ordinary” (Bull: 2010). The article ends off with another quotation.
Three sources can be identified; the twitter post by Catherine herself, a response to the Twitter post from a crew member and a quote from a colleague from the soap opera who was interviewed by the author. The interview made the story as the source said, “We have never heard of anyone coming into work with henna tattoos.” As mentioned in lectures: if it has never been done before then it is news worthy and people want to know about it. The target audiences for this article are the fans of Coronation Street; the picture however, is set to appeal to the male audience. The image used to accompany this article is close up of the actress taken at a slight high angle and making her the object of ‘male gaze’ (Sturken: 2009). Her relaxed posture and direct camera stare would appeal to the male audience because she is framed provocatively. The author uses a catchy pun on the word ‘tattoo’ for the title, “Tatt’s awkward!” to hook the reader.
The second article is titled “Coronation Street’s Catherine Tyldesley has the tattoo blues.” The word ‘blues’ relates to feeling down about something and the readers were surely drawn in by the title as well as the image’s inviting posture. Although the picture is less provocative than the previous article, the author coins her role in the show as Eva ‘cleavage’ Price. The structure here is the ‘inverted pyramid’ model (Bull: 2010). Inverted pyramid refers to the structure or model commonly used for hard-news stories. The most important, or heaviest, information goes at the top of the story, while the least important information goes at the bottom. The facts are presented in a descending order. This article makes no mention of a continuity problem and does not include the comment of a crew member on the twitter feed that the Mirror article presented. The author left the readers to draw their own ideas as to why henna tattoos would cause a problem instead of leading them to a conclusion as the first article did.

This article undermines the Mirror as they put the word ‘source’ in inverted commas when using a quote from their article yet continues to use the information. The author offers a different conclusion by suggesting solutions.

The Huffington Post article is the longest article out of the three. This media forum is quite popular for keeping tabs on celebrities. It is directed to the loyal fans of Coronation Street as well as Catherine Tyldesley. The information has been presented using a diamond structure which means that the most important information is placed in the middle of the article. The major problem in this article is that the author did not get the character of the actress correct. Catherine Tyldesley plays ‘Eva Price’ and not ‘Eva Prince’ as this article mentions. However, the author is concise about how, where, when, what, why and who as far as the story is concerned. The time period and location is very precise. The article states with who the actress was with and why. The style in which the news has been reported is opinionated however the article explains and elaborates on the fact which communicates clarity of events to the readers. The story unfolds sequentially and the quotation from the Mirror appears yet again but this time, the author makes the news believable. This style of writing is more for entertainment and is appreciated by readers as it is made enjoyable.
The image accompanying this article is quite different from the two articles above. The actress is portrayed as a humanitarian celebrity, as the picture was taken at a UNICEF function, yet still attractive and composed. This would appeal to a wider range of audience.
All three of the above articles are about one story and the authors have presented them in their own way. A major flaw is the reiteration of information from the same source. There are a lot of quotes used to make up the bulk of the story which is not attractive to read but offers an aspect of trust to the readers. This makes the story believable.
The sources used to bring out the story are the Twitter post and a second hand quote from someone from the program who had spoken to the Mirror. As mentioned in lectures, Twitter is a social media forum which is works faster than posting or publishing articles. The media chose this story because it allowed direct access to a celebrity and it was something new.
The crux of the story was that the actress could possibly cause a problem in relation to continuity editing for soap opera and that this would be hard to explain to viewers yet pictures used in these articles were all of Catherine Tyldesley as an individual. “Stills (photographs) are very popular with readers. They buy them” (Bull: 2010). One article used a photograph of her at a UNICEF event but the other two articles used provocative images. The article was about henna tattoos that the actress acquired over her holiday and there were no pictures of the these major factors; the henna tattoos, the actress in Dubai, the actress with her boyfriend or the actress in relation to Coronation Street.
References:
Sturken, M. & Cartwright, L. 2009. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford University Press, Inc.
Bull, A. 2010. Multimedia Journalism: a practical guide. Routledge.
Links to Articles used:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/coronation-streets-catherine-tyldesley-cant-1520870
http://www.corrieblog.tv/coronation_stre_1/
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/08/catherine-tyldesley-henna-tattoo_n_2429306.html