When coming up with our newspaper we held an survey, which included questions that would help us with choosing the stories. We asked questions such as 'What would you expect to find in your local newspaper?' to give us an understanding of what most people notices within their local newspapers and what more people would rather have within their newspaper. We also asked them ' What would you like to be included in your local newspaper?' to give us an immediately understanding of what other things we could included in our newspaper but would still appeal to readers. From our results we find that many people would like the newspaper to included similar things as real newspaper companies use, but still to include one or two different things that, will make our newspaper different to the rest. While trying to relate our stories with similar topic range, we decide to produce stories that related to news at the present. After getting an understanding of what are targets audiences wanted within our newspaper we then started to research into current news and came up with stories that would appeal to most of our readers. We come up with a range of different ideas which is shown in the plans, but then we have to come up with our final ideas. We in the chosen we come up with, we included three local stories and two national stories.
Stories for our newspaper:
Local stories:
Sainsbury's - Refurbishment of the local store, explain the changes and how it will affect the local community
Transport fees (Metro)- Explain plans that will be put into place in the future
School - Current weather conditions damages the school, leading to closure of the school, leading much talking about the new building and problems with it.
National
University- Current rise to come to the university fees, explain the effect it has on the public and students
Tax bands- Many house tax band in the wrong band, explain how can change the band or get it check to see weather it in the right or wrong band.
Once we had come up with final stories for our newspaper, we then decide on how we would produce the stories.. We find the best way to do it was to spilt the stories up that we want to included in our newspaper. Giving an fair amount of stories each to done, but also making sure we were managing our time, giving us time to do our other tasks. We decide to do it this way, as it gives both of us chance to included our own research and thoughts in to the newspaper, making an little part of the newspaper our own. As a result we decide we would both write an local and national story each, meaning we would have to do two different types of research. My two articles were the new news about the wrong Tax bands and the damaged £21 million new school building within the area. Leaving my partner writing about the development plans for the metros and the university fees. Therefor it left us both writing about our local Sainsbury's refurbishments together.
My first story draft - Short story on tax band
What's Your Band?
'Many properties have been placed within the wrong council tax band. Council bands were based on what homes were sold for on a set date: properties within England were set on the 1st April 1991 and the 1st April 2003 for properties in Wales. Property owner’s can have the home tax band reviewed and could end up having a reduction and a refund on any difference due. There been a snapshot survey held by consumer champion website, finding that one out of seven properties, selected at random was placed in the wrong band, making a high per cent of 14 per cent of properties could have been placed in the wrong council tax band since the early 1990’s. Refunds on properties have been running into several thousand pounds and still more to come. You can check your council tax band on voa.gov.uk and find more information about inquiring about getting your tax band reviewed. Beware of getting your property reviewed as it cannot just lower your the band but could make it higher or just leave it unchanged. For more information telephone 0844 2380162.'
After getting it read through by an other person, I found out that i was missing the most important part that all newspaper use, which was anecdotes from local residents, but i felt that with this story it would be better to not included them. When coming up with this story, i wanted to include all the right information the readers would need to know, which meant i have to included website links and even a contact number.
Sainsbury's Interview Questions and Reply
As we have decide to include real life stories within our Newspaper, we throughout it would be good to include what is happening with their local supermarket. We decided to get in touch with Sainsbury's their self and ask if we would be able to hold an interview with them. Holding this interview with Sainsbury had made our Newspaper more realistic but including real life issues within our area. Within our interview with Sainsbury's we asked 9 questions, that we thought would be useful information our readers would like to read about, for explain 'would the in store prices increase to reimburse the building cost?' By asking questions and including information like this within our articles would grab the readers attention.Also by holding the interview with Sainsbury's give us chance to get the full understanding of what an real career in an newspaper would be like.
Sainsbury's story:
Sainsbury’s has undergone major construction in past months, remodelling the entire shop and extending on the original building. Due to the competition from other big supermarket chains nearby, Sainsbury’s felt that in this area they needed to increase their market share as it has the opportunity to receive a lot more business due to the fact they are situated in a catchment area. Their aim is to introduce non food products to the store for instance, clothing, entertainment, electrical, home ware etc. They believe that the sales potential from these new areas of retail could provide a greater profit.
To mirror the success to that of the Durham and Washington stores, they feel this well awaited 2 year extension plan will follow suit. Ensuring that the in store prices will stay the same therefore not reimbursing the building costs of the project. Increasing the store space an extra 10,000 square foot with the introduction of a mezanine floor added for even more space. Primarily seizing the opportunity within the area, aiming to boost profits of the store within the new areas of the store. With the inclusion of non food products they believe this will receive more interest from customers, made apparent from other local store figures.
But is this 10 million pound investment worth it? Many customers in the area like the familiarity of the store and although it is being updated, would like it to be kept the same. As it does not include the product ranges of clothing, electrical etc, it doesn’t tempt the consumer into buying other products and therefore allows the customer to get what they need and that’s it. Although this is obviously seen as strength to Sainsbury’s as it encourages them to buy more products with the new range being available.
Updating the image of Sainsbury’s is an extensive task, priding themselves on the quality of the company and their products they knew that this refit had to be done. Although reducing the car parking by 96 spaces was a big ask, as it caused disruption trying to relay the new spaces, the weather did not help with this phase. Keen to build a new image to the store the petrol station also undergone refurbishment, although cutting back on products in there, as they feel that there was an insufficient profit from the amount of items stocked. Much debated topic surrounding credit card machines and whether or not their will be the installment of ‘pay at the pump’, but we can confirm that there will be no credit card stalls at the petrol pumps as in their opinion it keeps the personal, friendly atmosphere.
Sainsbury’s is due for completion on the 23rd February, with a weeks closing from the 16th February. This ensures that they can complete the internal moves as the entire layout of the store is changing, and therefore would be unachievable if the store was open.
When changing our interview in to an newspaper story, we tried to arrange the story and information around and set it out the best we can without make it look like an interview. Within this story we wanted to included as much information as we could from the interview but also at the same time trying to keep it interesting for the readers by catching in main/key information. Within this story we also tried to included all the general information the public would be asking themselves.
Monkseaton High School story:
£21 million down the drain !
On Sunday 28th November at approximately 3am, Monkseaton High School head teacher Dr Kelley was alerted by North Tyneside Council security that there was a problem in the building. Many members of staff were called into the school to find out that 3 of the 100 roof panels had been leaking leaving many areas of the school damaged by the amount of the water that had got in. Later on that day the architects come to assess the damage and put a time scale on how long the repair would take.
Due to the severe weather conditions earlier during that week it therefore put a hold on the repairs, as it wasn't safe for people to work on the roof. With the repairs on hold, it meant that Monkseaton High School would be closed for the week to all students and many members of stuffs.
Still after the week off, the roof has only got temporary replacement panels on. The permanent solution will be put in place during the Christmas break and assessed at the same time. This decision has been put in place for the student benefits meaning that there would be not more education loss due to the damage. Monkseaton High School feel that it is worth noting that the work that has been done due to the damage has not cost anything to the school or council.
Within this story i wanted to capture the real effect that had happened to the school but i tried to keep the school from either forcing on disagreeing or agreeing with the new school. I wanted the story to include the damage to the school and the effect the weather has had on this band new £21 million school, but also capturing the developments that has taking place in getting the school repaired.
University fee's story:
Students face rise in tuition feesStudents will be forced to pay thousands more for their university education under proposals to raise the tuition fees. It has been reported that the student funding calls for universities to be left to decide what to charge.
A highly controversial option for the Government and in particular the explosive exposure for the Liberal Democrats, who campaigned against tuition fees during the General Election. Their favoured option of a graduate tax was ruled out by ministers as many classed it as unmanageable. An obvious radical change needs to be made to the funding system, with graduates paying a higher rate of interest on loans, more places being made available and universities effectively competing for students.
As a result many believe there shouldn't be a fixed price for higher education because all universities are different and provide a range of courses. Now pressure will be forced upon the university as they have to persuade the students that these charges for their choice of course represent the value for money. Therefore proving or having to improve their standards of teaching and that these admission costs are fair, as well as contributing more to supporting the students through different policies.
Under these plans, universities can start to vary what they charge but it will be up to students whether they choose the university. The money will follow the student who will follow the quality. The student is no longer taken for granted, the student is in charge.
Although a well awaited backlash over the increase in fees, became apparent through the many protests throughout the country by students. Forcing the decision that the criticisms of their recent promotion of this plan are in fact correct and that this idea would not be best pursued.
Metro fees:Time for change? With the newly modernised and updated stations along the metro routes, there are many more plans set to be completed. The plans are being split up into phases; the first and second phase have secured many investors and private developers, the proposed developments of the ‘all change programme’ is set to refurbish 90 metro stations and modernize 45 more, with structures such as bridges, tunnels and overhead power lines being looked at for repair and maintenance. Additional plans to meet other goals, for instance new park and ride facilities, doubling of lines and the rebuilding of stations, this being the second phase and is expected to cost £255.3 million, with this development already on its way to completion.
More plans are being added to list of ‘to dos’, and with the introduction of a third phase they are looking to secure funding for this. This will enable them to add a new fleet of metro car trains, a new signaling system and a new generation of ticket machines with more overhaul and maintenance of structures, track and overhead lines, and further station improvement that will be required. The reason why they are lacking this funding is due to the fact that the metro fleet will be almost 40 years old when replacement begins, even though from the original design the fleet had an expectancy of 30 years. Therefore due to the lack of funding plans are scheduled to start in 2019.
Although there has been suggested extensions and improvements in previous years that haven’t yet undergone any changes. For instance, in 2002, Nexus unveiled an expansion plan to extend the metro system by adding new sections using ‘street running’. This would provide a cost effective alternative to current metro services through areas that it doesn’t reach, using a high-end tram system. This plan listed a number of routes from; Tyne dock to east Bolden, Blyth and Ashington, Killingworth and Cramlington, to an entirely new track involving tunneling and bridging in the west end of Newcastle.
These plans would benefit the metro services greatly as these lines have the highest potential ridership, due to the struggle in gaining funding for this project and for the improvement of the existing system, these plans are highly unlikely to ever begin construction and if they were to be started will be in the long term. As a result the main aim and funding of public transport is geared towards the bus system instead of metros. With this in mind, many plans will not undergo development and the metro needs further backing from investors to complete these plans for improvement to make passengers journeys safer and easier.
Public story:
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We decide to include as advertisements for the readers and the public to included their story in the news paper. As with the newspaper being an new local newspaper, giving the public the chance to included their news and events in the newspaper, would help to grab the readers.
As we were basing our local newspaper on events and news that was taking place at the time, we find that some of the story were easy to get a hold of information's but on other hands such as the tax bands and university fees were hardier to, as news on them were changing during the several weeks.
Overall i believe that the stories were success and suitable for our newspaper and they fitted well with the news we were looking for. Also having taking part int he interview with Sainsbury's i feel that really helped us with our article on that story but it also give us an understanding of what it would be really like to having an invest and develop on real news and improvements.
