“It is. Are you?” The Independent is published with the aim to deliver political neutral news; nevertheless it has a slight slant to the left political spectrum but also covers right wing themes. It is one of Great Britain’s broadsheet newspapers and is aimed at an educated audience dealing with national and international news which concern the educated readers they are aiming at.
The First article to analyse was the main story of the business section of the newspaper, concerning higher taxation for bankers in London and therefore threatening London’s position as an international financial capital. This article is both theme and form wise a typical article for The Independent. It deals with an issue concerning the high income workers of the cities since the tax primarily needs to concern income levels of half a million and higher. The thought that London might lose its position as an attractive business centre clearly is not of concern to the masses but to specific fields of the financial sector whose members are possible audience for The Independent.
Besides the theme the actual context of the article gives further indication to why it is a typical article for this newspaper. The complete detail section of the article deals with numbers and facts of institutes as well as the expert opinion of Ian Hopkinson. By naming the exact statistics and quoting an expert the risk of bringing in a political opinion is reduced significantly. It is both informative and politically independent speaking for the typical style of The Independent.
Another article concerned the trial against Lord Ashcroft, a story which has been building up in the weeks before this article. Indications for why this is an Independent article are once more the theme but also how they display it. The theme itself is interesting for a broader range of readers than the previous article, however the piece is written in a way requesting prior knowledge and displaying the scene in a more sophisticated light. The fact that the article deals not only with Lord Ashcroft but also with the Conservative Party confirms the slight left wing slant of the paper.
Furthermore there was a third article dealing the fashion at the Oscars award ceremony. This is a rather unusual topic for The Independent as theme edges at celebrity gossip and is not the usual metier of the paper. However this article deals in a broadsheet style with the issue. The format includes paragraphs with up to 80 words and takes a business point of view on the Oscar fashion. It deals with the PR speculations of the designer labels as well as the financial interest of the fashion industry. The journalist took a very simplistic theme and instead of writing about the gossip took a more sophisticated approach that interests the audience of The Independent. This theme enlarged the range of readers but still held a broadsheet level.
All three articles were major stories in The Independent and covered the Business, the Political and Lifestyle section of the paper. All three articles were aimed at the typical audience for a broadsheet and indeed remained independent whilst being highly informative. The level of sophistication in diction and syntax both suggest the high education level of the readers.
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