Page Of The Sun example essay topic

Newspaper Analysis - The Sun The newspaper I am studying is The Sun, for the 10th September 2003. The price for the most popular tabloid is 30 p. In 1964, The Sun was known as one of the best broadsheet newspapers, but was losing a great amount of money. The Sun was up for sale shortly after, but there was only two key players interested in buying: the multi-millionaire Labour MP Robert Maxwell and the right-leaning Australian newspaper proprietor Rupert Murdoch, who already owned The News of the World. Mr Murdoch clinched the deal and immediately relaunched the Sun as a tabloid - shortly followed by the introduction of the Page Three girls. In 1978 The Sun overtook its closest rival The Mirror in the circulation war.

In 1986 Mr Murdoch introduced new print technology and moved the Sun to Wapping. In 1997 the Sun returned to its Labour roots and backed Tony Blair for Prime Minister. In 2002 the paper's circulation was about 3.6 million. In this particular newspaper, there are 56 pages. Where 16 1/2 pages, are actual news pages (30%), 10 1/2 pages are sports pages (20%), 16 1/2 pages are full of advertisements and 8 pages are full of features, (TV previews and listings, gossip column, weather forecast and a showbiz section etc, 30%) Tabloids normally lack in the amount of news they present the reader with, only 30% of this newspaper is actual news. Home news has a main headline, which takes up at least a quarter of the page.

For most of the foreign news articles they put a sub-heading on the side of each page, in this paper foreign news takes up approximately 3%. The Sun consists to be writing gossip news such as", Jennifer Lopez's break up with Ben Affleck ", as main news headlines. Some of the main news articles have pictures that fill up the page to catch the reader's eye. The front page of tabloids do not usually have a lot of news on the front the way broadsheet newspapers do, that is the case as tabloids such as The Sun have a strip of headlines and pictures to get the readers acknowledgement of what the paper contains. The masthead is 25.5 cm wide and is 5.5 cm downwards (20%). On the front page, there is a large picture of Holly Valance in a bikini, as she appears in the FHM magazine.

(For Him Magazine). In recent years, the sun is known for writing short articles on the front page to attract readers to read on with interest. The front page is 27 cm horizontally and 35.5 cm vertically. The main headline is named, "Last Rites" This particular headline is vertically 5.5 cm and horizontally 27 cm, followed up by the words "Bl undertaker, Blair is set to bury our nation". this is telling us that the prime minister Tony Blair is making blunders that are going to cost the nation. This headline is followed up by text, which is approximately 96 words, taking up 30 cm squared. Also included, is a picture of Tony Blair.

There are in total 11 pages of sport out of 56 in the paper itself. That is approximately 20% of the newspaper. The sports section is usually at the back of the newspaper, it only covers four sports, football (7%), cricket (3%), horse racing (4%) and motor sport (Formula 1 - Grand Prix, 0.3%). The sports section normally has less football news than on a Wednesday paper because it is midweek and all sport previews or analysis would have been in either the Sunday or Monday papers. There is a substantial amount of football news for a Wednesday paper the reason being, England's football match against Liechtenstein.

The Sun, surprisingly has no news on rugby, which it usually happens to consist of. There are not many features in this newspaper. This tends to have a showbiz column (4%) and they still print "J-Lo's break up with Ben" as a main headline in the home news section. The Sun also has weather forecasts (0.07%), TV Listings (5%) and a Radio Review (2%). Advertisements are mostly black and white and they take up altogether 30%. The Sun has advertisements located in every section of the paper, but towards the end it also has two or three pages of continuous adverts, usually advertising "good interest rates on loans".

The Sun's adverts are aimed for their readers, majority of whom are the working and middle-class, unlike broadsheet's, who advertise on matters of social leisure to pay for the cost of production of the paper. If you were to advertise goods or services in a daily newspaper the rate would depend on the space of the advert and where it is situated in the paper. You would rarely ever see an advertisement in a paper that takes up the whole page. In The Sun I am studying, Dell Computers have bought a page of The Sun to advertise. In these days, newspapers seem to spread the words out to take up more space, whilst 50 years back the papers were to have an article that would have been twice as long as the ones today, including the fact that the papers were more factual and better written than today. The ratio of actual pages of news to advertisements is 16: 16 1/2.

In my opinion after studying The Sun I have reached a conclusion that a catching headline can hold the readers attention and lure them into opening the paper for more information for that particular article. The Sun being a tabloid is number 1 in writing gossip, I feel, there is more less news and more gossip. I would not buy The Sun in future because it is too informal and does not do anything for my intellect..