Category: Newspapers
What would you do if you found a human skull?
You’re out for a walk and you spot something strange in a stream. You go to investigate and you realise it’s a human skull.
What do you do? I suspect I’m not alone in saying you’d ring the police and let them take it from there.
I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t pick it up, take it home, ring the local paper to have my picture taken with it and then hand it over to the police for forensic examination.
Still, just as well not everyone thinks like me, or else the Lancashire Telegraph wouldn’t have had what must be one of the most remarkable front page posed pictures I’ve seen in a long time: Great story.
What better way to say I told you so than by taking out a back-page advert in your local newspaper?
No, I’m not talking about the infamous ‘Amanda’ advert in the Scunthorpe Telegraph last week.
This weekend threatens to be crucial for the future of Aston Villa, fans of who pride themselves on supporting the Midlands’ biggest football club, with a rich history which draws very heavily on events in 1982.
Villa, managed controversially (in the eyes of many fans) by Alex McLeish, find themselves stuck in something of a relegation scrap. Depending on who you listen to in the Birmingham Mail newsroom, Villa are destined to go down (season ticket at Birmingham City optional to hold that opinion) or suffering a minor blip. The truth is probably somewhere in between, and a look at the Premier League table currently makes it likely Villa will stay up. Just.
McLeish’s appointment, given it involved him crossing from Birmingham City shortly after managing Blues to relegation, prompted protests by fans, and their patchy form has prompted frequent protests since.
And for fans (or at least those involved with the My Old Man Said site), who predicted a miserable season under McLeish, nothing says I told you so more than an advert on the back page of the Birmingham Mail:
The oddest advert to ever grace the front page of a regional newspaper?
I wasn’t convinced this advert was for real when it first began circulating on footie forums, and then, inevitably, on Twitter.
Here’s the front page of Thursday’s Scunthorpe Telegraph:
Look at the advert on the right-hand side. Looks a bit bland, doesn’t it? But it’s not the design which is interesting, so much as the words:
As determined efforts to follow up a chance encounter go, it’s right up there with hiring a plane and flying a message over Scunthorpe’s ground at their next home game. And who knows, perhaps even more expensive: According to the 2008 Northcliffe rate card, a half-page ad run-of-paper costs £849. That ad is smaller, who knows what’s happened to ad rates, but it is on the front page … That’s one heck of a message Amanda has to pass on. Obviously, the actual advert in the paper had her phone number on it….
Here’s hoping that the lad’s mate was really a fireman … (and that the Telegraph follows this up as a story next week)…
Like this:
As mugshots go, sexy is probably the last word you’d expect to see on his Santa hat…
Mugshots next to court cases come in many shapes and sizes. I’m a particular fan of police ‘most wanted’ mugshots at the moment, not least because of the huge number of page impressions they drive. This one from the Birmingham Mail went mental last week.
Of course, such mug shots don’t always come from the police. I’m not sure where this one from the Accrington Observer came from – but I’m pretty certain it’s the most unusual mugshot I’ve seen – and certainly the first mugshot where someone has ‘sexy’ written across their forehead.
Still, I imagine it’s the last thing on his mind at the moment – a jail spell is probably dominating those thoughts. But as ways to heap further shame on a criminal go, perhaps insisting on the release of a bad family photo is a way to go…
Like this:
Saying sorry for a missing apostrophe
Apologies and corrections. No-one likes them. For the newsroom, it’s an admission of getting something wrong when it shouldn’t have. For the complainant, well, they’d rather have not had to complain in the first place (green ink brigade excluded from that last statement).
In the Chorley Guardian – an excellent weekly newspaper editorially (and the opposition to my first place of work, the Chorley Citizen) – I saw an apology with a difference. Editorial hadn’t done anything wrong – but it appears advertising hadn’t done anything right:
As adverts for pubs go, one which gets details of events wrong and dinner serving times is obviously bad news once, but to do it twice?
But what’s with the obsession over the apostrophe in Bowen’s Pies? Twice mentioned. Far be it from me to criticise another company’s punctuation – but if you can’t make your mind up on your website about the use of the apostrophe on your pies, it’s hardly surprising others get confused.
Imagine if we ended up apologising for every typo which appeared in print…
Letter from America (or how even the letters page has been changed by the internet)
You can learn a lot about a newspaper, the inter-generational wisdom of newsrooms has concluded, from the state of its letters page.
Have too many letters from charities (Paul Daniels urges you to stand up for pets etc) and you’ve got a problem. Have pages and pages of letters from local people and you’re sorted – or as near to sorted as any newspaper can be at the moment.
The Westmorland Gazette – something of a guilty pleasure whenever I go to the Lake District – clearly falls into the latter category. Readers aren’t backward in coming forward to share their thoughts on the issues which matter to them, packing out two pages a week.
But proof, if it were needed, that the internet has changed even the old institution that is the letters page comes to the Gazette all the way from Milwaukee:
Now, that wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago would it? But what an impact the Gazette – bills for which are omnipresent around the Lake District – must have made to our American friends for the local paper of their holiday destination their first port of call when it came to giving their hosts a wake-up call about litter.
(That said, having just spent a weekend up in the Lakes, I’m not sure I agree about the litter).
Like this:
When marine roadkill becomes a picture story
Anyone who has worked on a newsdesk for any length of time knows the value of an animal picture story. The cuter the better, and even better if there is a bit of a sob story to go with it.
I think the Lincolnshire Echo might have missed the point with this picture story though. I have nothing against porpoises appearing in newspapers, but I imagine most readers who prefer them to be a) alive and b) most definitely not mangled and bloody.
What next? Readers UGC pictures from their best roadkill?
Bloody hell! Not the sort of animal picture story most of us would have in mind.
Newspapers: How to make the voxpop worthwhile again
The Newcastle Evening Chronicle underwent a re-design last week to give it a more modern feel, new content platforms and a design which accommodates a higher story count. In my opinion, it looks much better.
But that endorsement doesn’t really mean very much as I’m not a designer by trade. So why am I going on about it here? Because I want to talk about voxpops, and how the Chronicle has helped (hopefully) reinvent them.
Here is an example of the daily voxpop which now sits as part of the Feedback (letters, tweets, emails etc) spread:
Newcastle Evening Chronicle Voxpop
For as long as anyone can remember, the voxpop has been a staple part of a regional newspaper. Your heart sinks when the news editor picks on you to do it. This post isn’t intended to be purely a former frustrated reporter’s therapy about the part of the job he liked the least.
My worst vox pop experience was at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph when the editor requested a 30-person voxpop to support the launch of a campaign to get part of the local shopping centre knocked down. It took two days to get 30 people to pass comment on this part of the shopping centre and agree to be photographed. You’d think this would be a sign of a campaign which didn’t have much traction, but you’d be wrong. It was popular (apart from within the confines of Blackburn with Darwen Council, which part owned the shopping centre). It’s just that people didn’t really have much to say. The biting wind and driving ran which accompany Februarys in Blackburn didn’t help either.
Newspaper front pages as works of art
Last year, I posted a picture of a Western Mail front page which summed up the emotions of the Rugby World Cup for Welsh rugby fans:
Western Mail front page from the Rugby World Cup
Ask any splash sub and they’ll tell you that a front page can be a work of art (they’ll also point you to a rival newspaper whose front pages are anything but a work of art).
The Western Mail, for the 6 Nations tournament – which the Welsh won yesterday – has taken the concept of newspaper splash as a work of art to a whole new level. Each of the fronts below gained real traction and appreciation through Twitter and Facebook, but are worth seeing next to each other:
Western Mail front page ahead Wales playing Ireland
Like this:
Newspapers: Marketing with bottle
This is a little random, but it worked for me.
On Boxing Day, at my parents, I saw this advert on the side of a milk bottle.
And here’s the thing – it reminded me to buy the newspaper.
