For years there has been the argument of
whether Scotland should leave or stay in the UK. However, recently the leader
of the SNP Party, Alex Salmond spoke in his party’s conference about how now is
the time for Scotland to be independent, thus causing speculation as to whether
this will be the last time Scotland will be named as a part of Britain. Two of
the news sources that have covered the conference are BBC News and The Guardian
newspaper.
Each news article takes a different stance
on this controversial move. BBC News initially appears to be the more unbiased
source of the two, providing videos of both Salmond and Blair McDougall,
director of the campaign Better Together,
and who is against this separation, thus allowing each side to be heard. The
approach to this article is to report what was said in the party conference.
This is evident in the repeated use of “Mr Salmond said,” which constantly
reiterates that the opinions expressed in the article are not those of the BBC.
Therefore, the main point of the article is not to sway an audience but to
inform them of the party’s stance on independence and allowing the reader to
form their own opinion.
However, from the first line of the article
in the Guardian, “the Scots are accustomed to having their views ignored in the
British political system,” it is clear that the Guardian take a stance that is
biased towards independence, by putting Britain in a negative light. The
language in this article is very inclusive of the Scottish, with the word “we”
frequently used, which gives the impression that the majority want independence
over the minority. The article also compares this debate to the similar
argument on whether Britain should leave the EU. However, these comparisons are
extremely biased towards the Scots, by using language to promote the need for
separation, such as the “wrong government,” to describe the British
government’s appearance to Scotland. Unlike the BBC News article, the Guardian
article is more opinionated in the language it uses and therefore makes a much
stronger argument in regards to Scotland leaving the UK.
Emma Brown
The distinction between the two articles is very clearly argued. In fairness to the Guardian, though, it is a comment article in the Comment Is Free section of the website (Comment if free, but the facts are sacred, wrote CP Scott: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2002/nov/29/1) so it is not attempting or claiming to be objective and impartial news. The effectiveness of the argument and the rhetoric of the article certainly are closely bound together though.
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