Newspaper Analysis

In today’s lesson, I spent time analysing "The Metro" which is another local newspaper. When I looked at the front page of the Metro, I noticed a couple of key things that they had.

Metro Front Cover

I noticed the main headline of the Metro is in bold letters, and this is what makes it stand out to the audience. There are also 4 other stories that readers can find on the front cover and these stories will also intrigue the reader to look inside the newspaper. The main logo of the Metro uses the colours blue and red, which I have noticed a lot of local newspapers do, because it resembles the colours of the cities two main football clubs Liverpool and Everton.

The Metro is advertising the fact that it is currently a free newspaper by having the word 'FREE' next to the current logo, so it will attract more people to pick up a copy and read it. They also have a big banner advertisement on the bottom of the front page for cheap broadband which is another revenue stream for the newspaper.

The stories on the left hand side of the Metro start with the topic of what the story is about. They also have different coloured text for the different topics. For example, news has an orange font, sports has a blue font and fame stories have a purple coloured text. I think this is used so people can find the topic that interests them the most quickly and move to that section of the paper. Also between the two stories there is a comic sketch that is very short but mocks things in current news headlines, and I think it has been placed their as light hearted humour for all the commuters travelling to work.

Second Page

On the first page of the Metro I noticed that there was a large advert located in the bottom left of the page. I think this advert is a way for the paper to make a lot of money as it is quite large and people will read the first page of the newspaper as it has a contents section. The Metro also has a contact us section, and this makes the newspaper more interactive for readers as they can give their own opinion on stories and also feedback on the newspaper itself.

There is also an advert promoting the newspapers own iPad app, which is also another way of being interactive to readers. Also, next to the iPad application, there is a recycling logo, what is encouraging people to place the paper into a recycling bin after they have finished reading the paper.

The lottery numbers and weather forecasts are also on this page, because a number of people would like to know the lottery numbers and weather forecasts as this is key information for them, as most people who read different local newspapers such as the ‘Liverpool Echo’ are able to get up in the morning and watch the morning television which includes information, like the weather for the coming days, whereas the people who read the Metro will not be able to watch morning television so essentially this paper is replacing morning television for commuters travelling to work.