World Issues: Comparing two articles – Colin Powell at the World Summit

Recently many of the worlds leaders met in Johannesburg for the earth summit. It was called to mark the 10th anniversary of a meeting in Rio de Janeiro which managed to set up a number of important environmental agreements. Unfortunately the USA's president, George Bush did not attend but sent his secretary of state, Colin Powell instead. There were 65, 000 delegates and 174 countries were represented. The first earth summit, hosted in Rio de Janeiro (1992) managed to set up several agreements, based on the environment and the future shape of global industrial development. It set up an agenda called agenda 21. This agenda set out the way that planet-wide environmental improvements could be achieved if local authorities made more of a priority of issues such as recycling and energy conservation. Now looking back at the summit from 10 years in the future, I personally think it was a failure, nothing seems to have changed. Problems such as pollution and energy conservation just seem to have gotten worse. Although things like recycling have begun to grow in some countries e. g. UK. The Articles The Sun article states facts about what happened when Colin Powell was eing â€Å"heckled†. It has little information about what was actually discussed. It could have stated the history behind the summit and the reasons for the heckling. The Times article is more â€Å"in depth†. It goes behind the summit and states its background while still stating information about Colin Powell's heckling and also the achievements of the summit e. g. the agreement, aimed at reducing world poverty and protecting the environment. It also has statements from the some of the world leaders such as â€Å"there should not be any more such mega-summits† which was ade by the Prime Minister of Denmark and the president of the European Union. Comparing the two articles, I find that The Times article is more detailed than The Sun article. Also there are the differences in language which you find between a tabloid (Sun) and a broadsheet (Times). The Sun seems to deal with the main issue of Colin Powell's heckling while The Times deals with the summit as a whole with Colin Powell's heckling included. The writers approach the article in different ways because of the types of newspaper they work for (e. g. tabloid) and perhaps there ersonal opinion on the subject. The Sun article is based more on the interesting parts of the incident with Colin Powell and also has hints of the writers opinion e. g. â€Å"agreement was branded inadequate†. While The Times article deals with issues of the summit and includes information about Colin Powell's heckling. e. g. â€Å"Powell's speech made it clear that the Bush administration has written off the planet† Both articles are biased but The Sun is more than The Times. The Sun seems to be pro-America which means most of its comments seem to make America seem in the right and are trying to create sympathy for Colin Powell. But The Times is very critical of America â€Å"Bush has written off the planet† even though it is critical, it does not mean that its against America but it does seems to â€Å"nit-pick†. To draw this to a close, I think that The Times article and The Sun article expressed different opinions on these events. Some points were bad while others were good. I believe that The Times article is the best due to its contrast of opinion and â€Å"in depth† information of the summit. I think that the Johannesburg summit like its predecessor was a failure even though some agreements were made. Some of the delegates branded the agreements inadequate therefore not everyone liked it. Also one of the biggest problems (America) did not seem to take much notice and as I stated have written off the planet. The main problem with putting agreements into practice is that perhaps some countries will adopt a scheme but not all countries will so the problem goes on and that some of the people on these countries will not do the extra work required to make it work (e. g. Recycling)