For over decades, newspapers have been the best medium of communication around the world. Thanks to this great creation many know what is going on around their community, city, state, country, world and even the universe, by just reading a couple of paragraph and be well informed. And even now, in the 21st century, with all the technology and new inventions, newspaper is still the “preferable” medium for many to receive their news. Newspapers popularity has decent in the past couple of years but is still standing strong and making its way in to fit in this techological-world. But is their popularity desending because of technology or because newspapers have lost the ability to capture the audience or delivered the information that they need to be delivered? In the following essay, I will explain why there might be something else besides technology that is helping its decay, and in what ways this might be possible to avoid.
Although newspaper is one of the oldest forms of communication, it has made it way to manage to survive in a society where almost everything is related to technology, how? Well, adapting to this new ways of delivering news, creating new ways creating newspaper, adding more media and visuals to make it more people-attractive, but has this been enough? Unfortunatly no, and you may ask then what is the real problem? In my opinion, it is just little details that will make a newspaper “perfect” and many companies are forgetting about them. Such as, instead of focusing on 20 topics at once, maybe cut that in half and your quality work will be better, instead of thinking about “what you like” try to get into the community mind, and think what do they like? Which is one of the things that complements best not only a newspaper but any communication medium. This is because it will be appealing to what they like, not only what the creator is interested on.
On our past assignments, I have had the opportunity to explore/study different newspapers, their background, history, their content etc. After analyzing them, I discovered that none of the newspapers I have been studying (which are top on the different communities they serve), fully satisfy the audience needs. They have their “strong” technique but then lack of strength in the other ones and this is where the problem is. The audience is looking for a newspaper that is complete, not only for certain topics but be great on everything they deliver and most importantly they need to fulfill people’s needs. One of the newspapers that I was expecting more from, and actually read on a daily basis before the previous asignments was “El Diario la Prensa.” Before doing any of these asignments I didn’t realize all those little details that would have made the newspaper better, and it made me realize how there is a need for the Hispanic community for a new medium in the Latino print business. Reason why for my final project I have decided to design a Spanish newspaper with what in my opinion will serve the needs of not only Latino community but also those who are interested on learning Spanish.
Reason why I decided to do my newspaper the way I am doing it is because first of all the Spanish newspapers that I frequently read, such as El Diario, Hoy and El Especialito, are missing “something” to become the best, and I will take the best of those and combined into one that will serve the community to the fullest. Also, Spanish is the second most common speaking language in the United States, reason why I think is important to have a newspaper that will serve everyone with everything not only covering certain things. With this newspaper, my main goal will be to satisfy those who, like me, don’t find a Spanish newspaper that fit who we are and our needs.
While researching and studying other newspapers, I learned that organization is key, so I want to make sure that is applied into my newspaper.
The layout of my newspaper will be the following:
– Cover: which I would like to have the name of the newspaper on the bottom (to differentiate my product form others) and then a cover picture with a headline. Keep it clean and simple. The picture I will like it to be the main news of the day, so if there is anything happening in Washignton D.C have a cover that will illustrate that.
– After the cover page, I will like to include an index page indicating where each section will be locate at and also what type of news are included in some of the sections. I will like to see this myself on others newspapers because although it is mostly used in magazines, I think it will help the reader to find their topic of interest.
– News Section: This section will be divided into three, top Regional, National and International news. By including all three, everyone will find enough information for my audience to be well informed. Each one will have 3 pages to display their news. Only the most important news will be shown on these sections. On this part of my newspaper, I will also like to incorporate other ethnicities group news because I think is important that we get to know not only about our community/ ethnicity group but also what is happening in other neighborhoods.
– Entertainment Section: This section will include those top news about celebrities, known personalities etc. Also, maybe some exclusive interviews with the most wanted celebrity. It will consist of 7 pages, of which two will be dedicated to a “Learn Spanish” section which I though will be nice since there are so many people trying to learn Spanish in the US this section will be design to help others learn the language. And I will like to add a “comic” section to give my audience a fun little section that will entertain them.
“Learn Spanish” Section: For this section I will like to divide into three parts:
-Beginners: This will consist of images and words that my reader will have to connect with each other. Such as:
Image: Someone saying hello – Adios
Image: Sad face – Triste
Image: Heart – Corazon
-Intermediate: I will do specific topics such as: “Social Ettique, ” on where I will do something similar to the beginners section but this time without image.
-Advance: I will do crossword puzzles with words that they should know if they have pass the first two sections.
– Opinion Section: I want to give my audience the opportunity to express their opinions through my newspaper. These sections will be monitored to ensure the welfare of my newspaper. On this section I will also include the “human interest” stories that are appealing to my audience.
– Classified: Advertisements, Job haunting, selling etc. But I will like to put as most job opportunities as possible, I think that’s one of the things that should be promoted the most.
– Economy: This section will be for those who are interested on money and economy. Including top news on Finance Industry.
– Sports: This will consist of 5 pages with the top news of sports in a regional, national and international level.
I will try to cover as much as possible and trying to have everything organized, since that’s one of the things that in my opinion make the audience go away. I want to make sure everything is neat and clear enough for everyone to be able to understand my work and the news being delivered by my newspaper. My newspaper will consist of 36 pages long including my cover page. It will have ads that of course target our community, but I will prefer to focus more on medical/Law relate it, and also educational ads.
This newspaper is obviously targeting Latino community and those who have an interest in Latino community/news. As I mention before that it will be written in Spanish and will have a “Learn English” section for those who want to learn the language. Since on my News section I will include a regional section I will start circulating my paper in New York first, and then maybe expand to other cities with a daily run of 4,000 newspapers. I will like to work with both images and letters, because we all know we are sometimes more attract to visuals than to the actual information, so I want to make sure my newspaper have enough of both. I also will ensure that my newspaper has a wide variety of topics instead of focusing in only one thing.
In my opinion, this will be consider the perfect newspaper, because it focus on what people interests are, its diverse and different. And everything is about how much care we take about the details and significant information. If I had the opportunity of making this new upcoming newspaper, I am pretty sure it will be a successful newspaper. A newspaper that will not only deliver news and entertainment, but also a newspaper that will make those feel closer to home because they will be updated on what’s happening in their native countries.
What I have learned throughout the process of doing this and the other assigments is that sometimes, most of the time, is not about who does it better or not, is more who is taking small details into consideration are the things that will make a difference. When referring to newspapers, we all have to be very careful the way its manage due to the position the newspaper is now, having to deal with all the new technology competition, you need to be concise and imaginative to drag those who you might have lost and new audience you want to pull in. My newspaper has been design in a way that I think will not only I will enjoy reading it but many, specially those who are trying to learn the language.
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