In both articles information is present about members of the Conservative party giving a letter to Mr.Cameron asking him to delay the passing of a bill legalising same-sex marriage. Both articales share that the letter was delivered by hand to No.10 Downing Street, and state that the date they wanted to postpone the bill until were the next elections, in 2015. Finally, in both cases the conservatives mentioned were high up in the hierarchy.
Unique for the artical by Juliette Jowit was the fact that the passing of the bill would cause at most a 1% loss in support, whereas the other artical states that ‘members of the party were leaving in droves in protest’. Additionally, the first artical I mentioned stated that there were 22 signatures on the letter, but the second had only 20.
Reasons for this could be that the second artical rounded the number down, or that the first article ‘made up’ the second value to sound correct.
Neither of the articales are unbiased. In the artical by Juliette Jowit, the bias is shown towards the passing of the bill legalising same sex marriage. Evidence is found showing this in the first paragraph, ‘the conservative grassroots rebellion…’ The word ‘rebellion’ makes the reader think that they are in the minority against the whole, projecting their subjective position for same sex marriage. Additionally, both articles use selective facts to show their position on the subject. For example, the first article gives a precice value for the loss in votes, ‘less than 1%’, whereas the second article states that people are’leaving in hordes’. The second article makes the reader think that the impact of legalising same sex marriage would be much higher for the Conservative party, projecting their subjective position as against. In both cases, the use of an image has majorly biased the news article one way or the other. In the article of same sex marriage, there is the image of two hands clasped around each other. This appeals to the emotional side of the reader, as they assume that both of the hands are two men, strengthening the position as for same sex marriage.
React!