Health Gap between Rich and Poor in Briatin - Essay Example

? The Growing Health Gap between Rich and Poor in Britain Outline Paragraph Introduction to Health Gap between Rich and Poor in Britain Paragraph 2: Three News Articles Not Expressing Similar Minor Details Paragraph 3: On BBC’s News Report Paragraph 4: The Critic on BBC Paragraph 5: On The Independent’s News Report Paragraph 6: The Assessment on The Independent Paragraph 7: On The Guardian’s New Report Paragraph 8: On The Evaluation of The Guardian Paragraph 9: Conclusion All the three online news articles, even though were not written on the same years, BBC published its health news report on 1998, The Independent on 2009, while The Guardian on 2010, had expressed the same main point. They all claimed that major idea that the health gap between the rich and the poor had continued to grow over the past years. As a matter of fact, according to Lakhani of The Independent (2009) and The Guardian (2010), United Kingdom had even attained its highest record of health inequality ever in history. But in spite of the fact that these three media groups had stated the same thing on the case of the growing health gap between the rich and the poor in Britain, it was important to note that they were not expressing the same supporting details of the news reports. Also, there were a lot of repressed meanings that could possibly be interpreted in these news writings. As a result, this essay would present my point of view on this issue through my evaluation of the three online news sources via using a deconstructive approach. I would first discuss my point of view with regards to the online news article published by BBC Online (1998). Upon reading BBC’s news report, I could say that it was really written in a conservative approach with the aim of not only providing information to the public but largely on persuading the citizens of UK, in particular, the poor sectors of the society, that the government could resolve this widening health gap. This media group’s manner of reporting was done through informing the public on what the government was thinking about the health issue. In fact, as stated by the author of the report who was a government’s former chief medical officer, Sir Donald Acheson, the local authorities had already mechanisms to resolve the challenges encountered by the most economically deprived sector of society. As part of the government, he greatly had voiced how the government were seriously considering the said health issue because of its significant impact on the succeeding generations. In fact, the seventy – five (75) recommendations given in the report was far – reaching as it had included thirty – nine (39) categories which consisted of health all the other areas related it like education, housing and environment. Though, it was only the voice of the government that was clearly expressed. Through taking into consideration the source of the news report, the BBC, a non – commercial, government - owned organization, it could be greatly understood the careful manner of reporting since it was being funded and supported by the government itself. As part of the local authority, this medium was serving a purpose of not only providing the information to the public but also, for the large part, it had played to protect the government. It was biased in the sense that the voice of the government was the only voice that was presented. Thus, this article of BBC had suppressed the other possible interpretations of this issue through not presenting the other sides of the problem. Given the serious health concerns encountered by the authorities, BBC had functioned as a mechanism of the government to give assurance to its people that everything was manageable and under control, that the growing health gap between the rich and the poor sectors of society would soon be resolved. In this manner, the public should worry about nothing because the government was doing its role. Indeed, BBC’s manner of providing information to the public was serving the benefit of its sponsor, the government. On the one hand, Lakhani (2009) had expressed a different approach from BBC in her news article published on The Independent. It was written in such an approach of liberally reporting the negative outcomes of the health policy in 1998. As stated by Lakhani, the UK government had used public funding for the multi – million – pound scheme to address the issue on health inequality, but unfortunately, the health policy had caused disappointment for its very own failure. Instead of bridging the health gap between the rich and the poor, it even had gone bigger. As stated in this news report in 2009, given their desire for positive media hype, only short – term policies aimed at resolving the health inequality concerns were pushed by the government. This was far from the information that the said health policy was far – reaching that even had gone beyond the responsibility of the Department of Health as publicised by BBC in 1998. In fact, according to Lakhani (2009), the report released on 2009 had acknowledged and emphasized the not successful outcome of the government to roll out the simple measures that would aid the people quit the bad habit of smoking even though BBC (1998) claimed in the past that the government included the promotion of anti – smoking policies to reduce the increasing numbers of low – income smokers. Indeed, this approach done by The Independent media group was far from being the conservative and government – biased like BBC. This was for the reason that this media group was not publicly owned but a commercial, privately – owned media organization of the Lebedev’s. So the news writer, Lakhani (2009), had written the news article in a much more unrestricted way unlike BBC. It was more liberal than BBC in providing information on the public on the assessment of the government’s failed health policy. The news disseminated by The Independent to the public had presented not only the positive views of the government alone but taking into consideration the negative opinion of the others on this failed health course of action. In this case, it happened to be much more valid, more reliable and more accurate in delivering public reports. Meanwhile, the news account of The Guardian (2010) was far from how BBC had reported it but was much closer to how The Independent’s manner of writing. It had reported the news in a more open way of disclosing to the public that the government efforts had caused inconsequential or even nothing close to address the gap between the life expectancy of the poor sectors compared to the rich sectors of UK society. This claim was even evidenced by studies. Also, the way it was written, it could be said that the government’s opinion was made visible as well in the news report. But, of course, there were other voices still that were not represented. There were a lot more other ways on how to interpret this news. This was because like The Independent media group, The Guardian was also a commercially - owned medium, which had meant that the news reports they were making visible to the public was not much shaped by the government. Thus, it had made every news much more valid, much more reliable and much more accurate but still, it aimed at maximizing its profit gains. However, in my evaluation of this news article, the way it was written was not as clear and impactful as Lakhani’s (2009) article for the reason that The Guardian (2010) did not really divulged to the UK citizens how much millions of public funding their government had put to waste with their failed approaches over the past years. Thus, this could be interpreted as just little public money or big public funding that was put to waste. There were a lot more ways of how to interpret the intended meaning of the news article. Different interpretations could possibly come from different people with different points of view and even different situations. It could be the case that the news was published stating that the government was considering the health issue their number one priority but how about the other unstated possibilities that the meaning of the report could be further interpreted? Well, though outcomes of the policy had proven to be otherwise, it was much of the case that what the health minister Anne Milton in 2010 said that to resolve the health gap was their priority (The Guardian, 2010) was also said by Acheson in 1998 (BBC, 1998). It was not really certain what they meant of making health concerns their priority because the outcome was contradicting their propositions. How to interpret this? There were many ways and this was just one of them. In this way, it was the case that the government could also be a great filter of the news was undeniable. It was also true that there were lots of filter that could hinder reality. It was the case that despite how the three online news articles had reported their similar main point on the issue of the widening gap between the health of the rich and the poor, these accounts were proven to be reporting the news in different directions. Some happened to be conservative while the others were liberal in their approach. Though all acknowledged that the health gap had grown bigger between both sectors, these accounts had only showed that meanings were not always certain and that language was unreliable. It had only gone to show that no actual interpretations of the texts existed for the reason that there were a lot more other meanings that were repressed. Indeed, there had been continuous growing of health gap in both sectors of UK society but different news accounts were expressing various interpretations of the issue. Some were even contradictory. It was important to note what the news meant for all of us, that news happened to be an objective and unbiased manner of letting the public knew what they needed to know. By this means, there should have been unity and coherence with these news reports though it was the other way around. References: BBC Online Network. 1998. Health gap widens. BBC Online, [online] 26 November. Available at: [Accessed 15 January 2012] Lakhani, Nina. 2009. Millions wasted on food schemes as the rich – poor health gap grows. The Independent Online [online] 15 March. Available at: [Accessed 15 January 2012] The Guardian. 2010. UK health gap between rich and poor widest ever. The Guardian. [online] 23 July. Available at: [Accessed 15 January 2012] Read More