L 205 F

On the 19th of April, 1995, a bomb blew the federal office building in Oklahoma City apart. The event was covered by several newspapers, among which there are Newsweek and Time. Both of the international newsmagazines released special issues on the bombing and both issues date the 1st of May, 1995. After reading both articles, one discovers that there are many similarities and differences between the length, the pictures, the structure and the style of the two articles. In this essay, the articles will be compared from the above aspects.

The first difference that comes to the reader`s eyes when looking at the newspapers is the difference between the front-cover pictures. The front-cover of Time brings a picture of the suspect of the bombing, Tim McVeigh, while Newsweek shows two victimes from the scene of the bombing. The two pictures already indicate the differece between the focus of the two articles: Time focuses mainly on the suspect, while Newsweek has its main focus on the victims and the scene of the tragedy. However, the word-choice of the cover-titles coincide: the word "terror" is present in both of them, which might indicate the international view of the blast: it was a terror.

Since both of the articles are cover-stories, they are both quite long: Newsweek has 19 and Time 31 pages on the blast. The "longerness" of the time article is due not only to the written text, but also to the high number of pictures in the article: there are 34 pictures in the Time article (and only 22 in the Newsweek coverage). There are three pictures that are present in both newspapers: that of the federal building, of Tim McVeigh and a third "image that came to symbolize the tragedy"(Newsweek): a fireman holding a one year-old baby. As for the other pictures, the ones in Time are more personal (and are therefore more shocking): a mother and a child in hospital, five children with their missing mother`s picture, relatives hugging. Th pictures of Newsweek are of a more objective kind: firefighters at work, terrorists breaking into the Nichols` house. In both magazines there are a map of Oklahoma and a sketch of the federal building and its surroundings.

The surface-structure of the two articles are quite similar: both of them consist of three main articles and there are several short ones attached to them. However, the ordering of the themes covered in the stories differ.

As mentionned earlier, Time focuses on the suspects, and therefore its first article is entitled "Who Are They?" and it is about Tim McVeigh and the Nichols. The article gives details of the suspects` activities on the day of the crime, presents their history ad explains how McVeigh was caught. It is only after the detailed presentation of the suspects that in "The Blood of Innocent" part the reader learns about the victims and gets a description of the site. Finally, the last part of the cover-story, "How Safe Is Safe?", raises the question of public safety.

In contrast with this, in its first article "The Rescue", Newsweek starts by victim-stories, gives a description of the site of the bombing and describes how people helped each other after the blast. It is only in the second part of the cover-story, "The Manhunt", that McVeigh is introduced and the police-hunt is presented. The third part, "The Patriots", deals with the militia group. The ordering of the articles certainly shows how the focus differs in the two magazines.

The comparison of the information covered in Newsweek and Time is also important. The main facts of the bombing are covered in both magazines, however, Time provides a more detailed presentation of the event. There is, for example, an (in my opinion) important fact that is not mentionned in Newsweek, only in Time: "For those sad, waiting parents, the terror was not over. Children’s Hospital received a bomb threat. They faced an awful decision: evacuate, or hope it was the cruelest of huaxes." (pg. 40.) On the other hand, there are stories that are stated in both articles, for example, the case of Dana Bradley, 20, or that of a man: "One man tottered down the sidewalk, blood on his face, declaring that he was heading home -only he didn’t know where that might be and couldn’t remember his name." (Time) Besides covering more information, Time also uses a more personal style. It gives names of firefighters, lots of victimes and also states the name of the federal building ( Alfred p. Murrah), which Newsweek does not do. On the top of some pages, Time brings quotations which also add to the personal nature of the article. The personal style can be best felt in the lines: "Colton called joyfully to his mother and ran to give her a big hug. `I love you Mommy.` That was the last time she spoke to his son." (pg.38)

While reading articles, especially ones as shocking as the Oklahoma Bombing story was, the reader does not pay special attention to the ordering, the structure, the style of the article, and what is more, one is not likely to read the same story twice in different magazines. The aim of this essay, therefore, was to call the readers` attention to the similarities and differences of two coverages of one event.