Stories for my newspaper

The story I have chosen to use as the main story for my newspaper is the one about the nightclub that got shut down after a drugs raid. For the stories images, I will go into Bristol and take pictures of an abandoned building to use as the main picture on the cover.

Layout

I drew out a plan for the layout that I want my final newspaper to look like. It was only a rough draft that I made on Microsoft Publisher, so I did not include pictures or text, but I made it just to show an outline of where I want everything to be positioned on my front page. This is my layout so far:

For the layout of my newspaper, I used some conventions that I have seen apparent in established newspapers. For example, I incorporated adverts across the top of the page, which I know has been done regularly by newspapers that I have studied, such as The Evening Post. Other features that I used were using bold font for the first few lines of a paragraph, and adding the writer's name and e-mail address after their story for readers to get in contact.

I also looked at the results from my questionnaire, and concluded that most of my potential readers would prefer more text than pictures, even if only slightly, so I made this happen on my front page. Also from my questionnaire, I found out that most of my consumers prefer adverts that include some sort of token or vouchers, so I tailored my front page to involve this, except I haven't quite decided which kind of advert it will be yet. Whatever advert I decide to have in the end, I will have to create it myself from scratch as I am not allowed to use any pictures that I haven't taken myself.

Potential Stories For My Newspaper

These are some of the stories that I think I could include in my local newspaper:

- Shootings at St. Pauls Carnival
- Nightclub shuts down after drugs raid
- Boy cycles to Newquay for charity
- School Sports Day raises £5,000
- Boy wonder's career over after shock injury
- Riots in Stokes Croft over new Tesco Express
- Boy gets selected for London 2012 Olympic team
- Opening of the Open Air gets off with a splash
- Notorious Portishead crack dealer gets shut down
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Potential Adverts for my Newspaper
These are some of the adverts that I think I could include in my local newspaper:

- McDonald's/ Burger King etc. with tear-out voucher
- Small fictional business
- Advert for my own newspaper, maybe collect 3 or 4 tokens to get one free?

Primary Research

I composed a questionnaire to try to find out aspects about my intended audience.

Some of the things I found out were:
- that my audience are mostly above the age of 17 but below the age of 50 (but I pretty much knew this already)

- that local newspapers were quite popular, with most people answering the 'which paper(s) do you read' question with The Evening Post. The Times was the most frequently answered reply, although you expect something like this as it's a national paper compared to a regional newspaper like 'The Mercury' or maybe something even smaller like 'Gordano Living'.

- that when asked about which kind of adverts they prefer in a local newspaper, most people tend to like adverts that involve some sort of token that enables them to either buy something or get it at a reduced price. People also like adverts for small local businesses rather than for big businesses as it gives the smaller businesses a chance to get noticed by potential customers, as a lot of people from the nearby area tend to read their local papers.
Here's some examples of big businesses using voucher-style adverts to attract people:

Here's an example of a smaller business that would use their local paper to advertise to their target audience:



- that most people read the paper to be informed on local news and on what's happening in the local area, but also that after that, most people actually read the paper to find out more on sports news, whether it be general news, or sports news refined to their specific area.

- that most people would prefer the front page of their local newspaper to consist of either equal amounts of pictures and text, or for it to have slightly more text than pictures. This is expected as this is standard for most newspapers, both locally and nationally. Although, the text:picture ratio will differ quite substantially depending on which paper you are reading. For example, something like The Sun, which is pretty much a magazine in newspaper form will have a lot of big pictures and not too much text, because of the audience they are trying to appeal to. On the other hand, a newspaper like The Guardian will have a lot more text than pictures, as their readership are usually cleverer and generally have a higher attention span. The Guardian's font will also be smaller in order to fit more text in.

- that most people that I surveyed would prefer to pay less than 20p for a local newspaper, with a few people saying that they would pay between 36p-45p or 46p-60p. No people that I asked said that they would pay any more than 60p for a local newspaper, which is pretty much what I expected, although I had to include the option for 'more than £1' just in case somebody answered with it.