Establishing your own newspaper is the dream of all journalists in the world. Controlling the message, seeing your name in print, and uncovering injustices that have not been published by other newspapers are just some of the advantages of owning your own newspaper, although this is not easy to do. You will need staff, time, money, and dedication for your message to survive in the competitive media marketplace, but, by following these steps, you are already halfway to success.
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Method 1 of 4: Starting Your Newspaper
Step 1. Determine your newspaper's niche
Newspapers, blogs and media offer so many different topics, you will fail if you think about competing directly with the reach and content of Kompas Newspapers. Search and select topics or perspectives that are not already offered in your area.
- News, events, and politics in a small town are rarely reported by the top newspapers, and they are usually of interest to the people who live in the city.
- The more specific the topic you choose, the more famous your newspaper will be among potential readers, but if you choose a topic that is too specific, this will actually limit the scope of readers. For example, write a story about “Bandung High School Sports Activities” instead of “Tompkin football team.”
- Do you have expertise in a particular industry that might be of interest to the wider community? For example, if you know about a nearby music event, your newspaper can interview a performing band or review a recent CD to make your newspaper more widely known.
Step 2. Choose a good name
The name of your newspaper should give potential readers an idea of who you are. It's easy enough if you want to set up a newspaper in a small town (Radar Bandung, Radar Sidoarjo), but it's a bit difficult to find a name for a niche newspaper. Choose a name that is concise but doesn't limit potential readers.
- Choose a name that allows you to publish different types of news. Choose a name like “Newspaper Bees and Beekeepers in the Windy City” instead of “Newspaper Beekeepers South Bandung”.
- Always remember to include the date and edition under the name of the newspaper.
- Also be sure to include your contact or website information under the newspaper name.
Step 3. Choose between print and online newspapers
Traditional newspapers are printed and distributed physically, while you can reach a wider audience and save on printing costs by publishing newspapers on the internet. Some people argue that printed newspapers are better because they can be placed in strategic locations and promoted by local businesses.
- Online newspapers tend to attract more diverse readers and can be marketed easily through social media and word of mouth. Online newspapers are also cheaper and easier to manage and can quickly publish new stories. However, you will be competing against millions of other small newspapers with the same readership, and remember, online plagiarism is rampant. A good and interactive site also costs a lot.
- Printed newspapers are easier to pay for and many readers like the physical experience of reading. However, producing this physical experience will cost you a lot of money, time and energy, and apart from a “letter to the editor”, your newspaper will receive very little response to what is published in your paper. It will also be difficult to know who is reading your newspaper.
- You can choose both print and online newspapers, but when you start, choose one.
Step 4. Find new staff
Whether print or online, starting a newspaper is a difficult thing for one person to do. Writing, editing, designing, shooting, publishing, marketing, and accounting, there are many different skills required to start a newspaper. As your newspaper grows, more and more positions will need to be filled, but to get started, you should at least fill the following positions:
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Reporter:
Write news stories, cover events, and generate ideas for your newspaper. Reporters work in the field, conduct interviews, collect and research data to write news stories and create all the content for your newspaper.
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Editor:
Help reporters improve their stories by editing the length, style and perspective to suit your newspaper. Editors usually supervise several journalists according to their expertise (business, sports, politics, and so on) and work as intermediaries for journalists and editor-in-chief.
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Editor in chief:
The leader of the newspaper, his job is to decide whether a news item is printed or not, where the news is placed, and the purpose of the newspaper. In smaller newspapers, the editor-in-chief edits and critiques stories while providing reporters with direction and input.
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Manuscript Editor:
Finding and proofreading news before publication, looking for errors in grammar, syntax, or facts. Usually script editors do a little research to understand a story.
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Photographer:
Accompany the reporter when searching for news and take photos to complete the story. Now the demand for video and sound teams from online newspapers is also increasing.
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Graphic designer:
Responsible for the display and layout of news in print or online newspapers. His duties also include creating graphs, tables, and illustrations for news stories.
- Sometimes these tasks will overlap, and you will need several people to handle the same task. You need to be flexible and know what your newspaper needs – for example, an art newspaper might need a large team of graphic designers to create a good newspaper.
Method 2 of 4: Writing New News
Step 1. Find news stories that are unique, interesting, informative or important to your readers
“A dog biting a man is not news,” says old-fashioned journalism cliché, “but a man biting a dog is news.” New news should have an impact on readers by revealing something they didn't know. If you come across something unique and strange, or an explanation of a mysterious phenomenon while searching for news, ask yourself if this story is suitable for your community.
- A great reporter can be an eye for people, events, or trends that readers can't see directly.
- The best news covers a little bit of everything by bringing new and up-to-date perspectives to the world.
Step 2. Do thorough research
Whatever your topic, readers read newspapers to learn something, and they assume that what they are reading is true. Although the way it is written is good, a story is inaccurate or wrong – it has failed. You can prevent this by researching thoroughly before writing, using a variety of sources, and looking for suspicious and untrue facts.
- Always take notes when doing research and archive data from sources. This is just in case the veracity of your news is questioned.
- Never use only one source of information – interview more than one person, research more than one book, and dig as deep as you can about your story.
- Ask for recommendations of people who may be able to provide information or other news that can be covered from your sources.
Step 3. Learn news writing techniques with 5W
At a minimum, a news story or article must answer these 5 basic questions: Who (Who), What (What), Where (Where), When (When), & Why (Why). News will be great if it is written in artistic and poetic language, but it will not be good news if it cannot provide readers with these 5 basic facts. Some points from 5W may be less important depending on the news, but these five things still need to be there to be good news.
- Make a list of these 5 words on a piece of paper and fill it out before you start writing. Keep looking for the answer even though in the end only one list is empty.
- To fully track a story, many newspapers have to research further and ask "How?" or "Then What?".
Step 4. Write a catchy opening sentence
The opening sentence is the first sentence in a news story. This sentence must attract the reader and describe the content of the news to the reader. Concise, interesting and informative, the opening sentence is the most important sentence and is usually the most difficult part of writing a story.
Write an opening sentence that contains the main idea of the story. If you're writing about a possible peace treaty, don't write "The United States and Iraq met to talk yesterday". “Yesterday, US and Iraqi diplomats began peacekeeping negotiations for the first time in a decade.”
Step 5. Use the traditional “inverted pyramid” to write down the most important information first
Your first paragraph should contain the most useful information for the reader to understand a little bit about the story you are writing. This is the width of the pyramid. Then add more specific facts and ideas by developing the points in the first paragraph. This ensures that readers know the information they want to convey even if they stop reading before they finish.
- The opening paragraph should only contain the most important “5W”, not all of them.
- As you write, ask yourself: “If my story was cut after this paragraph, would it still be perfect?” Space restrictions in printed newspapers make this cut very possible.
Step 6. Stay objective when writing stories
Staying objective or writing based on facts and data, not based on your opinion, is a guarantee of the quality of a writer. People read the news for information and they believe that the news is impartial. Suppose you are a liberal assigned to write a story about a local Republican gathering, you should not insult or demean them.
- Research all views fairly on controversial cases. For example, if you are interviewing a lawyer who is defending a criminal, you should also interview the prosecutor without being influenced by your own opinion.
- If there is a conflict of interest, you should pass this story on to another reporter, such as a report on your parents' business scandal.
Step 7. Correct and double-check the facts
There is nothing more powerful to destroy a reporter's credibility than typos and wrong facts. Make sure you have accurately cited the source and wrote it correctly.
Remove unnecessary words, sentences or phrases in your story. Readers like stories that are concise and straight to the point
Step 8. Choose one or more images that represent your story
The best photos for news can tell the news itself. Because of the limited space in newspapers, choose one or two photos that best represent your story so readers who are just glaring at it can grasp the point of the story they are about to read.
- If you publish online, you can post as many photos as you want. Still, the first photo a reader sees has to be the best photo.
- Never post and steal photos you find on the internet without the owner's permission.
- Use a consistent format for your newspaper. You can download the most common newspaper formats for example from Kompas or Tempo.
- Whatever format you use (Kompas, Media Indonesia, Tempo, Jakarta Post, and so on) make sure all reporters use that format.
- Have other people double-check your story to make sure you haven't missed anything.
Method 3 of 4: Setting Your Newspaper Format
Step 1. Put the most useful and interesting news on the front page
Just as an opening sentence attracts readers, your newspaper's front page should also attract readers. Choose stories that are useful, current, or unique, and make sure you have quality photos for those stories.
Choose news that catches the attention of the wider community. It could be a dramatic event in sports, or some kind of breaking news, of course these news should be of interest to the public
Step 2. Choose an attention-grabbing headline
Usually it is the editor who chooses the news title, not the reporter. The goal is to make a concise title and provide an overview of the overall content of the news to the reader. A good title should be concise and catchy and promise new information to the reader or compel the reader to think about questions that can be answered in the news.
- Use numbers as much as possible. Numbers provide a fair amount of information without taking up space.
- Use active sentences, interesting adjectives and expressive verbs. For example "Beautiful Deer Crashed In Through The Window at the Deli."
Step 3. Group news stories to make it easier for readers
This becomes even more important as your newspaper becomes more popular. No matter how good your story is, some readers only read the newspaper to read sports sections, opinion columns, or do puzzles. Group similar stories using the format you've defined, and stay consistent across each story for your readers to feel comfortable with.
- Include a table of contents on the first page of the homepage to make it easier for readers.
- Arrange your newspaper and place the most interesting sections near the front page.
Step 4. Find an advertiser who wants to place an ad
Whether online or in print, creating an advertising service is essential to making a profit – subscriptions and sales are too little revenue to compete in the market. After determining how much space you have left for advertising services, offer this ad space to friends or local businesses. Ask them to introduce people who need advertising as well.
- Give potential advertisers a choice of pricing: small, black-and-white ads are cheap, but full-page, color ads cost a lot more.
- Many blogs and sites offer pre-designed ads. You will get paid per ad clicked. Check the host site or use Google AdSense to find advertisers.
Step 5. Understand the basic principles of newspaper layout
You must determine the position of the news and ads after you select them. Known as paste-up, determining the layout for a newspaper is a job that requires journalistic, design, and computer skills. Now, design software like Scribus (free), Serif PagePlus (cheap) or Adobe InDesign provide patterns and tools to generate your shadow-like layout. In general, newspaper layouts only have a few rules:
- Clarity is the most important thing. If the story is hard to read or find, you need a new design.
- Edit, cut or modify news as needed.
- To make the title visible, bold it and center it.
- Never use letters with a font smaller than 11.
- Do not use more than 2 types of fonts to avoid confusion and confusion.
- Make sure your computer is set to CMYK colors, not RGB, because printing inks refer to CMYK colors.
- Fill the remaining blank space with advertisements, puzzles, comics or other stories.
- When you run out of ideas take a look at your favorite designs or award-winning newspaper layouts.
Method 4 of 4: Distributing Your Newspaper
Step 1. Find your target audience
Once you have your own newspaper, you need to know the people who might be interested in reading it. Try searching online for news stories that are similar to yours and see who reads them, then find out from local businesses and traders where the newspaper is sold.
- Take feedback from your newspaper readers seriously and make adjustments to their needs and wants.
- Create a social media platform by posting content regularly and finding people who have an interest in your newspaper.
- Don't be afraid to have your story republished by other newspapers and news blogs – just make sure they credit your original story!
Step 2. Use a printer that suits your needs if you want to publish a printed newspaper
Printers are usually expensive and require a lot of space, don't buy them if your newspaper is not yet widely circulated. Ask a local printer or other local newspaper about how to print a newspaper, and be prepared to spend some money.
- Color newspapers definitely cost more than black and white newspapers.
- Think about how many pages you want or can print before looking for news.
- There is an online printing service for IDR 450,000 for 300 newspapers, but it's not a good deal if you can find local printing services at a lower price.
Step 3. Invest in a site if you decide to create a platform
Many blogging platforms offer intuitive controls for designing a site, but if you're serious about starting a news platform, you should invest in a custom-built site. Try free sites like WordPress, Blogger, or Tumblr to get started before you have a loyal readership.
Consider buying a domain name for your newspaper such as www. TheWikiHowTimes.com to make yourself look professional to readers and potential advertisers
Step 4. Continue content production
Regardless of the platform, you should keep up-to-date with news and post images to keep your readers loyal. Not printing a weekly issue or leaving your blog on for a few days shows that you're not serious about breaking the news and readers will look to other sources with more news stories.
The more the production, the more likely someone will read it and be entertained. This means more readers, people promoting your newspaper and future readers
Tips
- Sell your newspaper for a reasonable price or for free if you just want advertising money.
- For free software, go to OpenOffice.org for word processing engines, Scribus for layout and GIMP for photo editing; These are all optional sources that can be used to produce your newspaper.
- Make sure all staff understand their duties and complete them. Keep your workspace as tidy as possible – when trying to enter the world of media, you'll be stressed if you don't find what you need!
- For paid software, try accessing eBay or another online store for cheap or used software. Adobe InDesign CS or PageMaker is used for the layout and output, Photoshop or Corel PhotoPaint is used to resize and correct colors in photos, Microsoft Word or Word Perfect is used as a word processing engine and Adobe Acrobat Professional is used to convert documents into PDFs used by most printers. now.
Warning
- Double check your work. In newspapers, all news is expected to be true without error.
- Layouts can be frustrating when you're trying to fit a space with news. Don't rush, and be prepared to cut the news if needed.
