Variation in the coverage of news in different newspapers: a comparative study

Abstract

Newspapers are called ‘the mirrors of the world’. They reflect and report the trends and happenings from all parts of the world. However, every story can be told in a variety of ways. It can be long or short, include photographs, be written in a straight news way or have a more feature-style approach. This paper examines the sense of the coverage of news in three English newspapers i.e. Hindustan Times, The Tribune and The Indian Express.The study points to the fact that there were major differences in the display i.e. number of columns as well as word count assigned to particular news. Both the parameters almost doubled in many news stories. There were also differences found in the placement of a particular news story. This shows that while one newspaper accorded top importance, the others gave half the space and display. The study also pointed to the fact that there were major differences in publication of the same news by different newspapers. It was observed that sometimes facts and figures reported had major differences. The newspapers vary in coverage of particular news as per their editorial policies and space consideration. Each newspaper provides different bits of information in a particular news story.