Local newspapers have a number of defining forms and conventions. Throughout my research I studied these and discovered the common features of the layout, colour scheme, photography, articles, tone and language. Local newspapers play a much different role than a national press newspaper as they are much more specific to one area. Local newspapers are like the voice of the community and are used to provide information about local events and news. National press papers are not made for local people and the tone and language is very differerent. They are more for entertainment than to present necessary news. I looked at local newspaper from all across the country, as it is important to get a good representation of local newspapers. The newspapers I looked at are,
– Edinburgh Evening News
– London Evening Standard
– Bristol’s “Evening Post”
– North Somerset Times
All local newspapers have a similar target audience varrying on what region they are sold. For example the “Bristol Evening Post” is targeted at people who live in and around Bristol who are interested in the local community and are above the age of 35 in most cases.
The “Edinburgh Evening News” and “London Evening Standard” are more modern versions of local newspapers. They use bright colour schemes and on the “London Evening Standard” the “New look paper” is advertised on the front cover. Both of the newspapers are sold in capital cities, which could be the reason they are slightly more modern than the rest. This also effects the target audience by making it more appealing to younger readers than a traditional local newspaper. These two newspapers are the main newspapers of capital cities so they have more national stories in them than the other newspapers I looked at such as, “Brown joins ministers in admitting: we got it wrong”, which refer to the national government instead of maybe a local council. They have a much more serious tone and the upbeat stories seem absent. However, these papers still show that they are local newspapers by the range of stories specific to there region, for example in the “Edinburgh Evening News” the story “Happy To Be Living in Edinburgh”.
The other newspapers I researched in detail were from Bristol and the surrounding area. These were “The Evening Post” which is Bristol’s and the surrounding area’s main local newspaper and the “North Somerset Times” which is one a few local newspapers in North Somerset. The “North Somerset Times” is the smallest scale local newspaper I looked at which meant the stories were very local scale. This paper is a weekly paper, like most local newspapers, which means there has to be a range of stories to fill the paper due to the possible lack of events in such a small area. This along with the stereotype associated with local newspapers mean a very different type of stories than regional or international papers. The stories tend to be based around things like local politics, education, sport and buisness activity in the local community. They also act as a method of campaign for change and celebrating success. Local newspapers like the “North Somerset Times” and the “Evening Post” base there stories on local people and events and the papers are known for running campaigns in the local area, these are called features. An example of one of these is in the “North Somerset Times” which is running a campaign on “Buses for the disabled”. This is typical of a campaign run by a local newspaper, helping a local disabled lady’s voice be heard and increases the chances of action being made. These campaigns act as a voice of the local people. The “Evening Post” also uses a lot of campaigns but in a slightly more wide spread area, however it still manages to be specific to certain areas due to the “Edition” system. Some papers may have three editions with certain updates and changes from the previous ones. So there may be several editions of one issue of a paper. The Evening Post is a daily local newspaper and this “Edition” system allows it to have more specific stories to the area it is being sold in. This is important because Bristol and the surrounding towns is a vast area so some stories would be of no interest to people who don’t live in that area.
[Quick video or audio talk about one of the papers?]
From all this research many conventions of format, narrative, camera angles, layouts and so on can be identified. It is easy to see a trend in the format of local newspapers. They usually include the title of the newspaper in the masthead, which always includes the newspapers logo that usually represents a symbol of the history or something that is associated with the area. For example the “Evening Post’s” logo is a ship, relating to Bristol’s well-known history in the shipping industry. Also in the masthead there is normally the price, date, web address and sometimes the tagline. The papers usually have one lead story on the front cover with a big title and picture with other sub stories in a column on the left third of the page. There is nearly always a banner advertising supplements available in the newspaper like the supplement “trends”, “All That is New in London” advertised on the “London Evening Standard”. The large number of adverts is needed to keep the paper going and make it money.
The narrative in local newspapers takes a more friendly and upbeat tone than a regional or international paper. A perfect example of this is “A restaurant and takeaway boss is back in business after a remarkable effort by his loyal customers to make sure they can still get their favorite Chinese food”. It is easy to take this tone due to the nature of the stories in local newspaper; they are usually catastrophes that have a happy ending. In this case it is a local Chinese that is going out of business until the local residents raise some money, which keeps it open.
Another defining feature of local newspapers is the photography in them. Local newspapers are full of shots of people displaying the emotion conveyed in the story. These are usually medium close up, showing the emotion on the persons face but longer shots can also be used showing a person in a location that is important to the story. The photos don’t always have to be of people but can be showing something important to the story for instance the photo of a traffic light shown on the front cover of the “Evening Post” above. Photography in local newspapers is not usually artisitcally challenging, it is unlikely for any tilt to be used but rarely it is, also showing in the traffic light picture above.
In my product, a local newspaper called the “Bristol City Times”, I tried to follow a number of these conventions typical of this genre. The format and layout of my newspaper is based entirely on my research, I created my own logo representative to Bristol, the famous Suspension Bridge, and created a supplement advertising banner. I also created an advert and situated it in the left third along with a sub-story. My main story I used a large main picture and Big title with a sub heading building upon main heading. I chose a long shot of Ashton Gate, which is Bristol City FC’s home ground. I thought this was a well taken shot because it shows “Bristol City” in big writing on the stand and relates directly to the story. I continued the main story on the second page and added another large image with a smaller picture in the corner. For this picture I used a picture of a player with the emotion of the story shown by the smile on his face. The smaller picture shows the location of the new stadium, I didn’t use this as the main picture because not much can be seen, as work has no started yet. In each of the pictures on this page I used small captions as I found all the newspapers in my research did and it helps explain what is shown in the picture. I also used a quote box that I found in the “Evening Post” and the “North Somerset Times”. This allows the views of some important players in the campaign to be highlighted.
On my second page I used a header with date, website, title and logo and page number which I used from the “Evening Post”, however they put this in the footer instead. I noticed in my research that the layout is very cluttered. No space is wasted in a newspaper and this was very influential in the layout of my second page. It is important to fill all the blank space because each area of the paper can be sold to advertising companies for extra revunue towards the running of the paper. I managed to fit my main story with 3 other sub-stories on this page and filled the extra space with an advert I created. I split the stories using thin line that is very effective and makes it look neat and professional, I took this from the “London Evening Standard”.
It was important to closely follow some of the conventions of local newspapers to ensure that I produced a recognizable media product. In every part of my product from the newspaper to the poster to the radio advert I was always thinking, “would this been seen in a real local newspaper?” and I believe because of this I have created an accurate product, which could be passed as a genuine local newspaper in the real world. However, there were some things I found in my research that I chose not to include. I had a bias towards the “Evening Post” and the “North Somerset Times” as they were from my newspapers area but also because some of the other newspapers I looked at did were closer to national papers and did not have some of the attributes of local newspapers (the local focus) such as stories like, “City Tycoon: My secret love life”. This seems too much like a story that would be seen in “The Sun” or “The Daily Star” which are national papers and are very different to a normal local newspaper.
To give my products thier own identity I used a house style of font and color scheme. This consisted of a dark blue for the banners and logo and a set font for my title and supplements. Along with this I had the tagline “Local news for Local People”, the repition of local giving it emphasis. I also created my own newspaper specific supplements such as “score” the local football supplement. This supplement is a conventional thing to have as it deplays local information about sport that wouldn’t be presented anywhere else.
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