The Paradise Papers story coverage

Media Industries

On the covers of these papers on the 6th November 2017 The Daily Mail made an attempt to try and protect the Queen by using the word 'dragged' it separates her from the scandal and attempts to make her seem innocent. This is not surprising because The Daily Mail is right-wing and pro-Royal Family so they do not want to damage their image.

The Guardian is a lot more objective in the headline, however they do use negative words like 'controversial' and 'exploiting' which begin to push the blame to the Queen. This is expected because the paper if left-wing and has socialist views. They also commonly write stories about economics and politics. The Guardian also uses the word 'poor' in order to victimise the people that aren't investing their money in offshore accounts

Media Language

The Daily Mail has the traditional tabloid style newspaper. It has a celebrity based story that takes up a large percentage of the cover. The main headline does take up the majority of the cover but it shows the paper's right-wing ideology by defending the Queen. There is a limited amount of copy on the cover which shows the tabloid format and appeals to readers of tabloids.

The Guardian uses the Berliner format that is a compressed broadsheet due to tabloidisation. There is lots of copy on the cover which appeals to news readers that like a lot of factual information easily accessible. The format means that there are plugs for other stories at the top of the page. The main headline links to the feature story of the paper. it shows the left-wing socialist stance of the paper by making the Queen accountable for the actions taken with her money and makes poor people the victims. The Guardian also had an ongoing theme through a number of issues on the week commencing the 6th November 2017 of bright yellow on the cover of the paper. The yellow was featured wherever there was reference to the Paradise Papers story. This attracts readers because of the bright yellow colour. This is also not a usual colour for the Guardian's colour scheme so it intrigues readers. 

Media Audience

The language on the cover shows the paper's right-wing capitalist views by making it seem as though the Queen and other celebrities are the victim of the scandal. This is because they are pro-capitalist. The paper uses the Queen as she is a major figure in the public eye in order to make people attracted to the issue. Despite the big political and economical issue that was going on, the Mail still used a celebrity on the cover in order to appeal to the tabloid audience.

The target audience of the Guardian is left-wing socialists. They would be attracted to the issue by the story that shines a negative light on capitalism as this fits the ideology of the readers. The Paradise Papers story is a good economical and political story for the Guardian to report because their audience like reading hard news, which is stereotypical of broadsheet readers.

Media Representation

In The Daily Mail, women are represented as being possibly inferior to men. the Queen is victimised and made to appear weak and vulnerable. The plug at the top also makes women appear inferior because the female doctor's name is in lower case, whereas the male doctor's name is in uppercase. The story featured in the plug body shames women as it insinuates that there is a need for women to look a certain way and be a certain size in order to acceptably wear a party dress.

The Guardian represents that there is a clear divide among social class. It makes it clear that the rich upper-class are unfairly keeping all their money by putting it offshore and avoiding paying tax. It represents the upper-class negatively by using words such as 'exploiting' and 'controversial'. It also victimises the lower-class by making them seem vulnerable and seriously affected by the upper-class. This is shown by words like 'poor' to make them seem damaged. 

The Guardian created a series of issues of the paper with the Paradise Papers because it is a story that can be easily reported on from a left-wing point of view that can show the political ideology of the paper and interests readers with this same ideology. The Guardian's standpoint means that they very much disagree with the Paradise Papers stories and what is happening with the rich avoiding tax.

The Mirror's coverage of the Paradise Papers shows their political alignment as left-wing. This is seen by the use of the word 'scandal' and claiming that it is the Queen's. However, the paper is a tabloid so it does have a large, celebrity-based, feature story that may lessen the effect that the political story has on the reader.

The Daily Express is a right-wing paper that takes the blame away from the Queen and makes her appear passive in the situation and as if someone else invested her money offshore. The story is small and at the side of the cover whilst the main headline on the cover is to do with weather. This is often the case with the Daily Express.

The Independent tries to be as objective when reporting stories as possible. This is shown by their word choice on the cover of their online newspaper. It simply states what has happened and doesn't try to put blame on anyone.

The Telegraph does not draw much attention to the story because it is a small story on the cover at the side of an image. This is because the paper is right-wing. However it does not attempt to protect the Queen and take the blame from her.