When Disaster Strikes

As we further our analyzation of rhetorical strategies,

it became increasingly apparent that such strategies

varied in the front cover of news articles alone. For

example in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina reached the

shores of Louisiana, dozens of news sources took to

the press to deliver the news with their individual twist.

One source, The Anniston Star, decided to cleverly nickname

the tragedy “Killer Katrina” and enlarged it to make it their

headline, as well as provided a detailed image of the damage

that was being caused by the extreme water levels. This

rhetorical strategy plays with audiences’ emotions by both

providing witty comic relief and emotional turmoil that

encourages seeking further information. In contrast,

The Times Picayune only uses one word to describe the

event: “Catastrophic”. Not only that, the newspaper also

describes the tragedy as an event that “threatens to inundate”

the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas. This word choice

is aimed to promote emphasis about the natural disaster,

while also fulfilling the goal that was initially set by both news

sources: persuading their target audience by unique means
[2 images, 1 link, 3 quotations, 183 words]