Second Page Layout, Letters and Article and Draft

As the second page of newspapers have varied greatly from my research undertaken, I have decided to make my second page a slight mix between all the ones I have seen and include an article, a letter section and an advert.

Firstly, in order to keep in with the conventions of a local newspaper, an advertisement or two is important to continue throughout the newspaper. I will make this relevant to my audience, also considering the results of my questionnaire. The sub-article, which whilst I only want to be a small part of my second page, is also important. This article will most likely be concerning a local event, as this is something relatively small to write about and therefore is practical, but also something which my audience expressed an interest in. Finally, the most important part of this page: the letter section. As a newspaper for teenagers, naturally quite opinionated people I felt it was important that they have somewhere to express these opinions, and therefore I have come up with the idea of having a weekly letter section where a different topic is asked every week and readers have the chance to write in and express their views, as the topic is chosen the previous week as outlined on my layout. For my letters I have actually asked real life teenagers, friends of mine, from across the UK to give me their opinion on 'Votes at 16', in order to ensure the views express are completely free-minded, as this is the section of the newspaper where the editors opinion is not the one that matters, it's the readers. 

LETTER RESPONSES

SUB-ARTICLE

In order to create my second page I also need to write up my sub article, on my chosen topic which is a local festival closing down. 


'NO-FEST FOR PLAYFEST'
A local festival which is held on the second Saturday of July every year has been cancelled. 'Playfest' which has been taking place for the last 4 years  at Browick Road Recreation Ground is said to have been a huge success amongst  both young and old residents, but now due to a decreased budget and an apparent lack of sustained management is no longer being hosted this year. Ed Jackson who performed with his band at the festival since it's beginning said 'This is such a huge disappointment. Not only was it good for the town but it also gave us a great platform to show our music to a big crowd.' Angela Hamilton who was in charge of managing the festival for the first 4 years has declined to comment.  


I also already have a photograph I can use for this article from when I attended a festival with the same name, which makes it look convincing and realistic. 

ADVERTISEMENT

Finally, the advert needs to be created for the second page. For this I looked back at the questionnaire responses, and decided to use the advert topic 'leisure activities' and make an advertisement for a Theatre Show. 

1st March-8th March

'What I Did At School Today' By John Mee

Wymondham Young Players

Directed by Chris Hemming

I want my advert to be based around the examples to the left, which look good, but are simple and include all the same relevant information. 
When creating my second page I also ensured it was the same size as my front page by keeping the same canvas measurements above.


I created the advert and have shown to the right how it progressed from text on a blank canvas into the final product. Although it is not as graphic as the two examples, it still portrays the same information in an aesthetically pleasing way.

DRAFT SECOND PAGE

After combining together all of my planning and the materials created above, I created what I consider to be the first draft, of my second page, and have included it here. I am aware there are a few spacing and touching up changes I need to make. I then spoke to my teacher to ask for improvements, and he said that I shouldn't make 'letters' the main subject of the page but instead include a smaller section for letters and a large editorial. I have taken his comments on board and have adjusted the layout on my page in order to fit more into the conventions of a typical second page of a newspaper. Having made the letter section smaller, it now looks like the picture above, having yet to add the editorial, which will be on the same topic as the letters

The Editorial
"I was inspired by recent debates in Parliament to talk about this weeks topic: votes for 16 and 17 year olds. Naturally we live in a progressive society, having in history moved from votes for men with property, to votes for women over 30, to votes to all over the age of 18. Now, there are a gathering of people who want this change to 16. You can see of course the reasoning behind it, 16 year olds are effected by the government in charge so why shouldn't they have a say? By the time you are 16 you're old enough to leave mainstream education so there's no reason why you shouldn't be educated enough to vote. But that's the problem, there is little political teaching in the curriculum, which brings forward the argument, how would a 16 year old know who to vote for? For the well educated and conscientious 16 year old's this would be an easy decision - who evers policy they agreed with the most, but for those who perhaps do not take this interest, this would be a vote wasted, one instead influenced by an outside person or just taken on a whim because, well frankly they have no idea. I say this about 16 year olds, but as an 18 year old, I think in my own life there has been little political knowledge given to me, everything I know about politics I have found out myself. This is where I think there should be change made; rather than give 16 and 17 year olds the vote in order to have a more accurate representation, why not improve political education in secondary schools, ensuring that when they do turn 18, they are well informed enough to vote exactly for who they want to because honestly, what's the point in giving the vote younger when there's 18 year olds not even voting. Let's see what the readers think..."