Following last week's story of the tram derailment in Croydon, further evidence regarding the story has been bought to light with footage of a tram driver of the same route earlier this year asleep whilst driving at 40mph.

What interested me most about this footage was the way that different sources covered the story and how the tabloids sensationalised with their used of hyperbolic and extreme language. For example, The Sun (a right wing British tabloid), wrote the headline:

The use of extreme and emotive language such as "tragic" "fury", "slam", "horrifying" help to sell the story and entice readers by painting a strong image and attempting to immediately evoke reaction. The elision of information such as whether or not the driver was the same driver of the tram that derailed also helps to sensationalise the story as it is likely to be assumed that it was the same driver, spurring further outrage.

Likewise, a headline from The Daily Mail (another British tabloid) used similar lanuage such as "shocking" and "disaster" yet the headline arguably offered more factual information than that of The Sun by declaring that the driver was "on the same track as the Croydon disaster", as not to suggest it is the same driver altogether:

Tram driver is suspended after a shocking video showed 'him asleep at the controls doing 40mph' on the same track as the Croydon disaster that killed seven 

Left-wing broadsheet The Guardian, however, arguably reveals the least information with it's headline, neither using sensationalist language to evoke reader reaction nor include adequate information to prevent assumptions.

Croydon tram driver suspended after video of man 'asleep' at controls

However, the word "asleep" is shown in apostrophes to suggest that this is alleged rather than factual. Likewise, the content of the article does reveal information is a factual and objective fashion, whereas it could be argued that both headlines of the tabloid newspapers aimed to build initial reader assumptions and reactions before the information was delivered.