Bad news sells papers

The intended audience of UK newspapers varies, (would you expect the same person to buy The Sun as The Guardian?), this results in variation between articles being published. The overall aim of articles in UK newspapers is to entertain and meet the needs of their audience. In my opinion it is this need to sell newspapers and entertain the population, which results in the lack of factual evidence or 'stretch of truths' in many articles, reducing their reliability as factual resources. .

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There is much variation between articles written in different newspapers; the style, how they relate to a topic. Two articles can be seemingly completely different from the title, but actually be based upon the same topic:

• "Sci-fi to aid earth": The Sun 29/10/2008 http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/special_events/green_week/article1871745.ece
• "Royal Society to research potential of geo-engeneering to limit global warming": The Guardian 30/10/2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/30/climatechange-carbonemissions

Both these articles relate to the researching of the potential use of geo-engenerring techniques (e.g. placing mirrors in the sea to reflect sunlight from the earth), to help limit further impacts of climate change. As you can see both papers take a very different angle in representing the information; The Sun more humorously and The Guardian including more detailed information.

In the majority of articles focused upon climate change the authors adopt either a satire or a 'doom' approach when reporting, helping to grab the attention of the audience. As stated earlier it is this need to 'grab the attention' that results in the lack of factual evidence, and often increased bias (in particular) when reporting about climate change.

When looking through newspapers for articles about climate change, I didn't see much evidence to suggest a link being commonly established between climate change and sustainable development. Recently most articles relating to climate change have been more closely linked with politics, and new government law changes. I think links that are generated in the media are done so to highlight areas already identified on the public's 'hit list', and at the moment sustainable development doesn't seem to feature highly in the public's viewpoint.