News Exam 1B

Practical: Front cover

TASK -  Create a Front cover for The Daily Mail including all elements of an example cover for a made up story. 

Planning:

Story:

- Indiana Savannah - Friends with Meghan since 2005, used to be her make-up artist on set of NCIS and has known about the affair all along. She is friends with Brett and advises him to cut Meghan out of her life.
-Brett Carpenter is a film producer and is 32 years old. Him and Meghan were childhood friends and started to be more close in 2005 where they were 'touchy feely.'
- Meghan Markle 'behaved appallingly' and it has been said that she was with Harry for publicity and to boost herself up the social ladder.
- Prince Harry found text messages between the two - "Had Harry - Prince Harry - not found those text messages then she would have probably continued the affair for the rest of her life!"
- Proof = Screenshots from Brett's text messages with Meghan.
- Brett = Outgoing, easily manipulated, nice guy, Devastated, Hurtful, thought there was a future with Meghan, Bitter, Resentful, Shame that Meghan has treated him like this. 'Poor Brett.'

Article Layout:

- Who, What, Where, When, Why.
- Further details/Quotes.
- Background, opinion, Future?

Example Newspaper:

This is the newspaper that i based my front cover off of showing 3 stories; one across the top, on the right with a photo and a main story taking up most of the space. 

My Front Cover:

Evaluation:

1) What was the task you were given and who was your target audience?

The task was to create a front cover for the Daily mail including elements of a traditional Daily Mail front cover with the main story being the one given. All other elements had to be made from scratch. The audience for this task was for the readers of the Daily Mail so aged around 25-45 for a C1, C2 audience.

2) What research did you undertake and what did you find were some typical conventions of a Daily Mail front cover - Layout, types of stories, font etc.

For research, I looked at a number of Daily Mail front covers and chose a main one to focus on. Then I analysed how the paper talked about certain issues and how they would show them. Some typical conventions included 3 main articles on the front cover; along the top, under the title of the paper was an article that would focus on what is included in the issue of the paper. Underneath that were 2 articles; one was the main story without a picture which would be the bigger headline and then an article underneath and the other was an article based more on reality which was placed along the right side of the page. The Daily Mail have their own font which they use in every single issue of the paper so i had to find a similar one and after trying some, found that the closest i could find was named platino Linotype.

3) Which Daily Mail cover did you use as your main source? What are your observations from this source?

The Daily Mail cover i chose [Located above] was a typical issue of the paper with the typical layout of a usual paper. From this i could copy the layout but choose different articles. From this source i can also see the colours that the paper use in their front cover so by seeing this, i sould copy the colour scheme so i can get an accurate copy.

4) Which areas did you find most challenging?

Throughout the whole of this task, the main issue i had was the spacing and size of different things. The main issue being the headline as i had to have it a certain size with being in the correct space. An observation of the front covers show that the Daily Mail uses nearly all of their space and rarely leaves out blanks. Therefore, i had to fill as much space as possible which i found challenging as it took a while to fit all the different elements together. Also i found writing the article difficult as i had to include the most important parts of the information while making it sound like it is from the Daily Mail perspective and viewpoint. Also, i had to write enough to fill the space.

5)What was your initial feedback? what did others say about your production? How successful do you think it is?

My initial feedback was that i had to check my grammar throughout the article and the headlines and that my top article was too serious so i changed it to the article it is now so it is more conventional. Also, i got feedback that my writing needed to be smaller in my article so that more could be fit in and so it was more typical to be Daily Mail. Other than these critics, my production was said to be good and my choice of stories, headline and wording was good. Overall, i feel like my end product was successful as it looks like a front cover of a Daily Mail issue.

6) Identify what went well and with hindsight, what would be done differently.

Overall, my front cover was shown to be very successful as it fitted with the conventions of the newspaper. All of my articles were said to be typical of the paper, my writing in the article was said to be conventional, i had a good choice of photos and my headlines were very good. However, in hindsight, my font in the article could be smaller to look identical to a typical front cover and then i could fit some more writing in and also, i could have worked slightly more on my spacing in some areas but overall i think my front cover was successful.

7) What have you learnt from completing this task?

From this task, i have learnt about all of the conventions of the Daily Mail and have focused on each element in more depth and have realised why they have done this. Also, through my research for the task, i have found many front covers for the Daily Mail and have seen how they approach different issues showing their views and biased thoughts. 

Clay Shirky

Participatory media = Social media
Citizen Journalism - Different angles, inside POV, Helps news, witnesses
Online news have more revenue than print news - Can be erroneously reported (fake/exaggerated)

Shirky: How social media can make history.
- Largest increase in expressive capability - Everyone has a voice
- Printing press made mass media capable
- Telephones - More conversation
- Other recorded media (Photos)
- Radio and TV
- Internet - Individual and group conversations at the same time.
- Telephones = One to one whereas Tv= One to group
- Everyone can be a producer
- Prosumer = Producer and consumer

News history & regulation IPSO - Task 5

Licensing Act of 1662	"An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses." It was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863.
Tax on Newspapers 1711	The first bill in parliament advocating a tax on newspapers was proposed in 1711. The duty eventually imposed in 1712 was a halfpenny on papers of half a sheet or less and a penny on newspapers that ranged from half a sheet to a single sheet in size.
The Observer	‘The Guardian on Sunday’. It takes a social liberal or social democratic line on most issues
Reduction of the stamp tax in 1836	This was first imposed in 1712 for British newspapers The tax gradually increased until 1836 when the 4d tax on newspapers was reduced to 1d.
‘Golden age’ of newspaper publication	79 years ago, the newspaper industry was a very competitive business, the leading newspaper would do very well, numbers 2 and 3 would do okay and every other newspaper suffered. By the sixties, newspapers no longer had 2 or 3 sections, they had gardening sections, food sections, life-style sections etc. and ad sales really came through; the industry was plummeting. Now the dilemma for newspapers is being able to sell the most paper copies and having a large readership, newspapers are turning to online news now as that is the way the society is progressing.
Profits from advertising	Since newspapers have been declining in circulation since the internet and online news websites, newspapers have had to increase profits by adding more advertisements in the paper and since profits have been declining with the circulation, more advertisement is needed in order to make money.
The Press Council	This was a voluntary press organisation which was founded by General Council in 1953 with a non-binding regulatory framework. This was funded by newspaper proprietors. The aim was maintaining high standards of ethics in journalism.
The Independent	The Independent has gone from being a newspaper and an online website to just an online news website due to the drastic decline of the circulation of newspapers so from being just online, the Independent can focus only on the website and making that the best it can be since newspapers are becoming useless.
Phone Hacking Scandal	The phone hacking scandal was that there were allegations that News of the World editor and other world news journalists were involved in hacking people’s phones leading to the closure of the 168 year old News of the World tabloid in 2011.
Decline in Newspaper Circulation	There has been a drastic decline in the. circulation of newspapers since the internet and access to online therefore to help this, newspapers have made online news websites to make news circulation rise

representation of stereotypes - Task 4

The London riots...
Who is being represented?
In this article, a young (teen), British black male is being presented, stereotyping that youths are more violent and that black people are more included in the riots. This also represents people who are more of lower, working classes (chavs). This is shown through the use of clothing worn by the main person in the image. The person, male, is wearing a track suit which is stereotypical clothing of someone who is young, poorer, etc. This article is largely stereotypical because as soon as an audience read it, they imagine a violent youth with black skin. This is being presented through the positioning of the features in the photos, the Sun have put the dark figure in front of a burning car, implying that he is responsible and therefore, violent. This image has been photo-shopped with the two images conjoined to make the main person seem guilty for causing chaos putting the blame on the younger generation. They have put the flames behind him to symbolize danger and making the audience feel threatened by the hooded figure. Causing more fear in their readers, the sun chooses to put the headline 'ANARCHY' in block capitals in very big writing to warn the readers of the violence and almost to scare them that there is revolt due to anti-government behavior caused by youths.

ISIS...
Who is being represented?
In the main article of this front cover, Muslims are being presented in a bad light, showing a stereotype that most Muslims are terrorists which is a common stereotype because of the way terrorists are portrayed. Some people fear Muslims because of this as when terrorists are presented in the world, they claim to be from the sae religion so therefore, the stereotype comes from this as they are considered the same religion so must have the same ideologies. This is portrayed in this article through the use of bias through statistics and images, when talking about the religion, the paper puts a photo of a terrorist next to it instantly showing a link between the two. Also through the use of statistics by using '1 in 5' it makes it seem that a lot of Muslims in the UK support terrorists. This is shown to make the audience feel fear of the religion by stereotyping them as bad people who want to kill everyone which shows to be working as a number of people believe this.