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ACP Forums
This is an archived ACP Forums thread.
Shirley Jo Long Manes, 5/22/2005, 10:01:06 AM
I am a Mass Com major at Midwestern State Unuversity. Recently, a friend and I decided to start our own newspaper in one of the surrounding small towns. I have had some of my major classes, but still have a way to go. I am a good writer and speaker, but I am afraid I am jumping the gun just a bit. None the less, the opportunity to be an editor before graduation day could be an invaluable experience. I need all the advice that I can get on using layout software, costs and federal regulations that may affect us. Your help will be greatly appreciated.
Thank You.
Responses
Michelle, Oswegonian., 6/24/2005, 8:39:06 AM
I really admire your project-- good luck! I have no idea whether or not this book is good because I picked it up yesterday and I haven't started reading it, but check out "Starting and Running a successful Newsletter or Magazine." Here's the Amazon link; I hope it's good.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1413300839/qid=1119551595/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-5816027-3758435?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Are you going to hire people to work for you? I would suggest as a bare-bones staff: Publisher and/ or Editor-in-Chief/ Executive editor; Business Manager (they can handle ad sales and general treasury things); Creative Director (handling photo editing, layout, design); and an editor or two or more depending on how deep you want the publication to be. If you're going to go with like, a 12-pager you won't need as many editors as you would for say, a 40-pager. Then you need writers. Again, if you're going to have a smaller paper, you dont have to hire tons of writers. The editors can do the writing. If you want to risk it, you can have a staff camera and have everyone be their own photographer, or you can hire a photographer or more. It all depends on how important imagery is for you. A lot of these positions can be combined, too.
For equipment I suggest Macs, but that's a personal thing. I would say get Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, standard MS Office... I'm sure I'm leaving somethign out but I couldn't tell you what it is right now. Working off a server may be a good idea as well.
Make sure you know how you're going to print your paper too. You may be able to go through a local publisher like your town's daily or weekly newspaper publisher. Get in touch with the publisher and he or she will let you know their rates and all that good stuff.
I hope I haven't scared the crap out of you. And also remember, there are so many ways to run a newspaper. This is mainly the way that the Oswegonian runs. Check out other newspapers with similar content and art that you would like to have and see how they roll. I hope I was able to help!
-Michelle
mgarcia20@gmail.com
Rachele Kanigel, 7/5/2005, 1:13:20 AM
I'm writing a book about college newspapers called The Student Newspaper Survival Guide, which will feature a chapter on Starting a New Newspaper. The book won't be out for another year but I'd be happy to send you (or anyone else who reads this) a draft of that chapter. Email me at rkanigel@gmail.com.
-- Rachele Kanigel
San Francisco State University
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