Analysis of Newspaper Front Pages

The front page of a newspaper is a well thought out extension of the values and themes that the newspaper's staff wishes to communicate to their carefully chosen audience. The most important theme of the front page of a newspaper is what particular region of emphasis the paper borrows its values from. To have a successful front page there must be a streamlining of those values and themes so that the core readers can recognize these specific themes.

These themes are communicated through three basic categories that make up a newspaper's front page; the layout, the stories, and the aim of the advertising of those stories. The front pages that I have chosen to analyze show three different aims for their region of emphasis; the New York Post, Hartford Courant, and Boston Globe.

The first aspect of each front page that I noticed was the layout, and it is obvious that the Post takes a drastically different course than the other two. Their arrangement has one story with a very large color picture and even larger white lettering than the picture. There are no links to any other stories elsewhere in the paper except the feature story however on the first page in there is a more traditional front page layout. But there is also a reason that this front page should be visible on the outside and it relates to the aim of the paper.

It is obvious that the Post wishes to grab its readers' attention with this type of layout. The Courant and the Globe have a similar layout with a large color picture in the upper center and a smaller graphic or picture in the lower right. The Globe has a column on the left side that provides links to about ten stories elsewhere in the paper and both have a horizontal column on the very top that also serves this function, but with fewer links. It is obvious that these two papers do value the content of their stories and many of their readers do not have to be grabbed but already have subscriptions.

The specific stories deal much more in detail with the region of emphasis of each paper. The Post seems to bank on the sensational nature of its featured story; Britney Spears losing custody of her children. It is hardly relevant to our everyday lives or our lives at all but it does interest a large portion of the reading population, and that interest is what sells papers. Their region of emphasis is New York City and the working crowd whose attention must be grabbed on the way to work. This phenomenon is explained in the book "Making Local News"; "The most common explanation of how economic considerations affect news coverage is that news is selected and presented not so much for its importance as for its ability to entertain.

In their attempt to sell newspapers or raise ratings, the news media are said to give greater prominence to stories that elicit emotion than to those that inform" (Kaniss, 46-47). The Courant and the Globe feature stories that are more relative to their regions of emphasis. The Courant highlights Yale University protests against military recruitment on campus as well as against the "don't ask don't tell" policy of the military towards homosexuals. They also have a smaller "nation/world" section on the lower left of the front page, as most stories emphasize their coverage of the Connecticut area.

Kaniss again makes an important point on similar newspapers; "Newspapers whose audiences are better educated and more affluent use more dispassionate language in their headlines and stories and give greater prominence to government versus crime stories than do newspapers that appeal to a middle- or working-class audience" (Kaniss, 49) The Globe features a story on the red sox preparing for the playoffs highlighting a pep really by the fans. This emphasizes the New England regional aim for this paper, while most of the other stories featured are of a national nature; since they are a more widely bought and read paper around the country than the Courant.

Kaniss mentions the problems associated with this mixture of motives; "Metropolitan newspapers have cast about in a number of directions for strategies to counteract or transcend the problem of splintered local identity: from 'zoning' editorial content to expanding national news and consumer-oriented lifestyle features" (Kaniss, 3). The Globe does have mention of the Britney Spears story on the left hand column with a link, and the Courant does not mention this story at all.

Often a paper's way of advertising the stories on the front page offers a much more direct route to their aim. The Post uses huge headlines and pictures to advertise a celebrity story. This shows their extravagant and sensational aim in selling these papers. The Courant uses stories on varied towns as well as Connecticut as a whole.

The lettering is much smaller to emphasize the information that they are providing their readers instead of advertising the popular and attractive. The Globe presents a varied aim of trying to balance national news and Massachusetts/Boston news. They use a more regional story like the red sox and their fan base, but the larger articles are of a national nature. This is the type of mix that Kaniss discusses in "Making Local News".

In conclusion, almost every category separating each front page relates to the paper's aim of their region of emphasis. The Post is a newspaper that attempts to grab the reader with sensational headlines and popular stories designed to sell, and not to inform and deal with our everyday lives. The Courant is a much more local and regional paper designed to inform Connecticut about their state and the stories that are relative to their everyday lives.

And the Globe is a more national recognized and read paper that portrays many national stories first, while still appealing to their New England and Massachusetts regional base. These front pages tell a reader about the paper as a whole, and in a not so subtle way informs that reader of their specific taste for the information that they seek.

Works Cited

Boston Globe dated 10/2/07
Hartford Courant dated 10/2/07
New York Post dated 10/2/07
"Making Local News", Phyllis Kaniss, University of Chicago, 1991