Prime Minister Boris Johnson was interviewed by BBC Breakfast, where he admitted that only 127 EU drivers responded for visas, which is fewer than half of the 300 that were offered. This was a UK government scheme for emergency, wherein temporary visas were offered to European drivers to curtail the shortage of drivers in the UK. This essay is going to study the same story from different angles, presented by two different UK-based media organisations.
The analysis will revolve around the publication of the story regarding this subject by The Mirror, the online platform of The Daily Mirror, the tabloid-newspaper and the UK-based television broadcast program ITV News, both presented on 5th October 2021. The analysis will be based on their audience demographic, story narrative, presentation, language, sources, selection of interviewee, focus, agenda and other terms.
A survey by Ofcom (2020) mentioned that while the Mirror had the third highest reach amongst both genders in all forms of news publication between July 2018 and June 2019, it reached more women than men in the period of April 2019 to March 2020. Another survey by YouGov (2020-21) says that The Mirror holds the 8th position in the most-read newspapers and is enjoyed by 29% of its audience- 29% of males and females.
On the other hand, ITV News has gained popularity among women. An approximate of 55% were females, of the total of 50% viewership, while male viewers are 46%. The fame of ITV News has constantly been at 91% from the 3rd quarter of 2020 to 2021, but interestingly the popularity witnessed a fall of 9% from the first quarter of 2021. Starting at 48%, it went down to 39% by the second quarter and then went up by 11% in the third quarter, making it 50%.
While The Mirror enjoys an equal popularity of 32% among Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers, ITV News witnessed slight variations in the same with 46% Millennials, 50% Gen X and 53% Baby Boomers. “It would be wrong to over-emphasise any temporary bump in TV consumption, given the longer-term shift towards digital sources but it is a reminder of the continuing draw of video-based storytelling as well as the strength of traditional news brands” (Reuters Institute, Digital news 2021).
ITV News has an ABC1 social class viewership of 50% and a C2DE social class viewership of 60%, while Mirror has an ABC1 social class readership of just 11% and a C2DE social class readership of 19%. In both cases, the C2DE social class audience is slightly higher than that of ABC1 (Ofcom 2020).
The narration and presentation of the story by the Mirror is in a very direct and precise way where the majority of the content is from Boris Johnson’s interview with BBC Breakfast, almost as if they are reporting about the interview as there was nothing else mentioned in the piece other than that. On the other hand, ITV News has taken a separate angle of the same story, by showing the actuality of what the public was facing at that moment.
Along with this, they have provided a precise number of the applicants who were fuel tank drivers out of the 127 applicants, which is 27. They have also interviewed people like Edwin Atema from the Federation of Dutch Trade, who spoke for the workers' willingness to quit their jobs just to work in the UK for three months, a side which was not covered by the Mirror and Grand Shapps, transport secretary along with interviewing a few other drivers for their side of the story.
The language used by both media platforms was only similar in showing their agitation, but they did it in different ways. The Mirror did use a few sharp and mocking words or sentences, which points towards their conservative nature. For example, “Mr Johnson claimed the economy has been in a "deep freeze and the pipes are unfreezing now”, blaming the stresses and strains on the supply chain on the economy "waking up" from the pandemic” and “Mr Johnson claimed the shortages of the pumps were caused by "demand, not supply" at the pumps -compared it to people making cups of tea at half-time in a cup final.” (The Mirror, 2021)
ITV News sounded displeased by the decisions of the government. For example, “Ministers were trying to downplay the disappointing uptake” and “The Prime minister says temporary visas for foreign drivers are not a long-term solution. The low take-up suggests it may not be a short-term solution either.” (ITV News, 2021) Even though Boris Johnson was not shown in the visuals, he was still mentioned in the script.
The sources of the Mirror were limited to only one, BBC Breakfast, but they did put an image with the news piece, credited to Getty Images, showing cars and drivers waiting for a refill of fuel- which did not seem directly relevant to the piece of news that they had presented. It was however indirectly relevant because this was among the things that Johnson was talking about in the interview. This shows that none of the sources that they used in this particular piece was theirs, which further reveals that they had no interviewee of their own.
However, ITV had taken multiple sources, all of their own, uniquely. The coverage of the news topic was mostly interview-based; therefore, they interviewed 5 people- all ranging from different backgrounds but talking about the same thing from their perspective, which is a very interesting intake. Most of the interviews were taken face-to-face, but one interview was taken online, which displays efforts.
The Mirror seemed to revolve its focus and agenda around the interview of Boris Johnson and what he had to say about the ‘shortage of drivers’ situation. Further reading the news piece, it becomes evident that their focus has shifted to how Christmas is going to be this year, with context to their prime focus. They later mention statements by Johnson that seem optimistic, regarding how the situation is improving.
ITV News has focused more on the struggles and issues faced by the drivers in the country. They have covered someone who was facing delay in returning to the industry because of reasons other than a visa, experienced drivers being poached from other sectors and being offered “lucrative deals” to drive a lorry and bus owners receiving resignations from their drivers who were moving elsewhere (ITV News, 2021) etc. They also covered bits of people on a higher post, who spoke regarding this, clarifying that their agenda is nothing but the perspective of the sufferers in this situation.
Bibliography:
·Lizzy Buchan, 2021. Boris Johnson admits only 127 EU drivers applied for visas to ease the fuel crisis. mirror. Available at: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-admits-only-127-25138761
· News, I.T.V., 2021. HGV driver desperate to help amid shortages ... - youtube.com. HGV driver desperate to help amid shortages but left waiting months to renew licence. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3ECCGdJbLI
·UK, Y.G., 2021. ITV News at Ten Popularity & Fame. YouGov. Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/media/explore/tv_programme/ITV_News_at_Ten
·Gov, Y., 2020. The Daily Mirror Popularity & Fame. YouGov. Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/media/explore/newspaper/The_Daily_Mirror?content=all
·Research, J., 2020. News consumption in the UK: 2020 - home - Ofcom. News consumption in the UK: 2020. Available at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/201316/news-consumption-2020-report.pdf
·Institute, R., 2020. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism | Reuters ...Re. Digital News Report 2020.Available at: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-06/DNR_2020_FINAL.pdf
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