Research into Local Newspapers - Halstead Gazette

The Halstead Gazette

In this post, I am going to look at the Halstead Gazette and study what the pages (the first two in particular) contain, and try to evaluate them and discuss why they may have chosen certain aspects.

Name of Paper

- 'The Halstead Gazette' immediately recognises the area where the news paper is based. 'Gazette' is written in a larger red font, recognises the fact that the newspaper is part of the Gazette series, then the location of the newspaper is recognised. This paper is being sold on a weekday - Friday - This shows that the readers of the newspaper could perhaps be unemployed, part time workers or retired. The adverts also emphasize this.

Content

I would like to use a similar idea of having a column of what is inside the newspaper, this shows the common similarities between all the stories, the style of the paper and the readers interests.

Main Article

The main article on the front page of this newspaper is about local shops staying open during the week and opening stores on Sundays. This would only interest the local area, who read the newspaper and who shop in the local town or towns that this article is referring to.

Advertisements

The adverts on the front page of the Halstead Gazette emphasize a specific target audience
There are two advertisements on pubs. Another about stair lifts and another advertising a local opticians. These all convey an older target market for the newspaper, possibly retired.

Photographs

The main photograph on the front page of The Halstead Gazette is part of the main article 'Let's open on Sunday'. The title and photograph take up the majority of the front page. This attracts most attention toward the main article, rather than the smaller advertisements and other text and information.