Front Page Conventions

Newspaper front pages have several functions, including attracting readers, giving the main news, showing what smaller stories the newspaper offers, and giving the paper an identity and personality through the colours and layout it uses. In general, newspapers will present themselves with a big headline on their front page.The headline will refer to he biggest story since the last issue, and this is often determined by public interest in terms of the target audience for the newspaper. For example, tabloid newspapers will traditionally have their main story as some celebrity gossip or scandal, usomg puns in the headline, whereas more broadsheet newspapers like to focus on (serious) political and economic happenings. The cover is the one chance to sell the product, so it needs to appeal to its target audience.



The ever colourful and scandalous tabloid
newspaper



This broadsheet newspaper is laid out in a much
more serious manner, with a powerful picture to sell the paper,
and lots of text.

The front page of a magazine can often determine peoples' opinions and expectations of the newspaper, and from this, stereotypes can be drawn about that newspaper. Just look at the picture of The Star above. Its price is written in the biggest font on the page, perhaps connoting that readers of the paper are particularly concerned about how much money they're spending, and even their decision to buy the newspaper hinges on how much it costs.
I feel, from looking at the above, that broadsheet newspapers' front pages seem to only document what is in that issue of the daily newspaper, whereas the tabloid front covers are almost an advertisement from the paper, perhaps assuming that their readers are not as dedicated; indicative of the stereotypical audiences of broadsheet and tabloid newspapers, business based people and young people respectively.

Local newspapers traditionally take the route of a more broadsheet style, particularly because of the lack of both interest and news within the entertainment industry of small regions, and more the will of close knit communities wanting to know just what is happening around them, as I found in my survey.

The Cornish Guardian, a good example of a local newspaper, shows that there are advertisements on the front page to keep the newspaper fairly cheap for readers, as well as a main story which is in the public interest, in this case, power and energy, as well as a side story which appears to be about education. Education is a big part of local newspapers, as opposed to national newspapers, as local schools and pupils have their chance to get their face in a newspaper.