Fatal Stabbing
One stabbing. Two portraits the course of action. However, are they both portraying the same truth? The two portraits of the action are an article from respectively The Guardian and The Sun, both portraying the stabbing of an 18-year-old outside an Oxford Street Foot Locker.

The texts in question are articles from the two newspapers, though they were not publish in the printed newspaper, but on the website of the newspapers. The two articles deal with the fatal stabbing of an 18-year-old boy in the midst of the Boxing Day sales. The article posted in The Guardian is very focused on facts while the article in The Sun focuses on the sensation of the murder and crime. This can be due to the fact that The Guardian is “an organ of the middle class” meaning that many of their readers are fairly educated and are fact-driven readers. On the other hand The Sun is a tabloid newspaper and appeals to the sensationalist and gossip-driven lower-middle class, lower class and young people.

The victim of this fatal stabbing was the 18-year-old who went under the street name Seydou Nutz who was pronounced dead after a fight broke out between youths in the Foot Locker shop. According to The Sun the fight was between rival gangs over which trainers to steal in the jam packed Oxford Street. Reportedly, the gang chased Nutz through the store whilst they “shoved parents and children aside as they chased down the terrified victim before murdering him in broad daylight”. However, it has not been proven that Nutz was brutally murdered due to the trainer dispute. The police have yet to arrest one or more suspects, but because the area was busy “we have probably more witnesses than we would normally have and I’m very much looking forward to them coming and speaking to us”, says Detective Chief Inspector Mark Dunne from the Metropolitan Police. Later the same day, another man was injured in a second stabbing and though the police say nothing is firm there are many similarities to the Foot Locker stabbing.

The article published by The Guardian, Oxford Street reopens after fatal stabbing, uses a very descriptive and informative language. The tone is very neutral and straight forward and facts are put over feelings. There is an advanced sentence structure and appeals to the logos of the reader, meaning that it appeals to the logic of the reader. It uses some adjectives to describe the situation, however not nearly as many as used in the article by The Sun. There is one picture in the article to give a picture of the area surrounding the scene of the murder.

Even though the article published by The Sun, Teenager is stabbed to death at the sales, deals with the same incident, the two articles are hardly alike. Though this article is also descriptive, it also includes interviews and is rather uncritical. The article appeals to the pathos, meaning that it appeals to the feelings of its readers. Contrary to the one picture in the article by The Guardian, there are five pictures in the article by The Sun. The pictures posted by The Sun may cross the borders of its readers as they are very up close to the victim, crime scene and those who have just witnessed a brutal murder. This again can be due to the fact that The Sun is very gossip-driven. Also The Sun starts out by stating that the police have recovered “several” weapons from the scene, where they later write “a number of weapons” which is what the police have announced. The use of the two phrases can be to get the attention of the reader and guaranty that the attention is held throughout the article. Another thing is that the two articles quote the Detective Chief Inspector differently. This being said the two articles are both very similar and very far apart.
The two articles portray a similar storyline as the one in the poem Please don’t take my Air Jordans. This is because both situations portray a young man being murdered over a pair of trainers. I find this interesting because it is a petty thing to kill another human being over.