In the year 1912, the magnificent ship called the Titanic, sank slowly to the ocean floor. This is something that shocked everyone as the ship was labeled “unsinkable”. Friends, cousins, brothers, sisters, and parents were all on this ship. Making the journey to the United States on this glorious ship seemed like a great idea. But sadly, this didn’t end up how anyone thought it would. This disaster was portrayed through one of the only media sources at the time; newspapers. International newspapers like The London Daily Mail, The London Times described this. But also National papers in the United States did the same exact thing. Comparing the national news and international news, I have come to conclusion that the national papers spent more time on detail of this catastrophe than the international papers did.
(Daily Mail, London, England, April 16, 1912) The London Times does not go into much detail about the sinking of the Titanic. They gave the coordinates of the disaster but not really how the disaster happened. The only detail they really give about the actual sinking was that the Carpathia reached the Titanic and saved the children and women that were in the safety boats. The London Daily Mail finally goes into a little more detail than the other article. But this was not about the disaster. This was almost a slap to the face of the vice-president of “International Mecantile Marine”, which controls the company of the Titanic; “White Star Line”. The information given was how the vice-president called the Titanic “Unsinkable”. The article quotes him giving information about the Titanic and how it will not sink and if something were to happen how the ship would handle it. You get the feeling that the article is upset by what happened because of the information given by the vice-president. But there still isn’t much information given about the disaster. As I just stated, it seems like both these articles show that London was not happy with what happened and they did not want to cover much about it. But the United States on the other was completely different.
(Daily Mail, London, England, April 16, 1912-The Times, London, England, April 16, 1912) The New York Times as well talks about the coordinates of the ship when it sank and it gave the times of everything that happened. The article itself that was given does not give much more information that was on the page. But there are other headlines about what happened that would have been on other pages. This was not given in either of the London articles. The London Articles only had what I talked about. The Los Angeles Times even goes into detail of when the passengers were on the ship before the disaster and when they were getting in the safety boats. They have quotes from actual survivors of the Titanic. One talked about how they knew that they were among ice bergs but they “vainly” didn’t say anything to anyone about nothing being said. Another part talked about how one lady was let on a safety boat because she had kids by another elderly female. The elderly woman got on the next safety boat but this boat was sucked down and sank because of the suction from the titanic. These articles actually give you an article image of what happened and you almost get sad reading them.
(Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1912-New York Times, April 15, 1912) After reading both London’s and America’s articles, it is obvious that America spent more time on this situation. Yes I am sure that London was hurt by this situation as well, but from the articles it shows that America has struck by this more. It almost seemed like London was upset by this sense their own people were taken down on this ship and they were going to the United States. But the United States seemed hurt because they were excited about all the people coming to America at the time. To me this is why I think that the articles were different. Even local papers like in Midland were very detailed about this. These American articles were so detailed because they wanted all Americans to feel the pain and see what happened to the people coming there. Just like 9/11, it brought the United States together. But London on the other hand was upset because maybe they thought that it could have been avoided and all of those people could have been safe. Friends and family were lost and they seemed more angry then saddened by it.