Highschool: Newspaper or Magazine?

Question

My highshool newspaper staff has been toying with the idea of switching from a tabloid style newspaper to some type of magazine. What are the pros and cons of doing a magazine in place of a newspaper or the advantages and disadvantages to staying with a newspaper format? Our main concerns are the cost of each and if we did do a magazine we'd prefer to do color, whereas if we stuck to a newspaper format we'd stay with black and white. The main reason we're considering this is to help get more students interested in our publications. We feel that with a magazine we could have more creative freedom however with a newspaper we'd be keeping with tradition, so we have the tough decision to make as to whether or not we'd like to switch styles, and we'd like your help. Please include references!

- The Foster Flyer Staff

Answer 1

I worked on the newspaper staff at my high school and the magazine staff at my college.

Magazines are more expensive because of color and the glossy paper it needs to be printed on. In my experience, they don't sell any better.

Answer 2

Have you considered an online magazine to produce in conjunction with the newspaper?  That way you can do colour at no cost at all.

I have seen some interesting online magazines that actually LOOK like magazines.  Click on the issue of Desi Life (see link below) to see what I mean

Answer 3

You've probably been the journalism coventions like myself. Next time you guys go to a journalism convention, collect the newspapers from the schools that have the best newspapers.

One school you might want to look at for magazine ideas is Torrey Pines High School. They have a great newspaper and magazine.

For the newspaper, wouldn't it be cheaper to do a colored paper instead of black n white since magazine paper is very very expensive.

If you want to have people interested in your paper, my school found it interesting placing student-interested pieces. For example,  each month they had a best dressed/ fahsion-oriented person. Basically it was someone who really stood out and it was someone with different styles every time, such as grunge, goth, preppy, hip hop, even a girl who made her own clothes.

Do a sidebar with teachers. Like what they used to do when they were your age, what was their fad, what subject did they excel and which one they failed. Everyone is human.

Basically, when you think about doing interesting copy, make sure its something that appeals to your student body. Yea a magazine will interest your student body, but having a newspaper similar to a magazine would be cooler and less expensive.

I hope this helps. Message me if you have any problems.

Answer 4

magazines are way cooler than newspaper in my opinion. newspapers seem too old fashioned. your school needs to be more cool and stylish. maybe even add in polls about favorite shows and stuff besides school. it might make people be more interested and buy them more often!

Answer 5

Ours is a newsletter, and there is no staff, people just submit news for it. Its on sheet of paper. Hmm, it'd be cool to have an actual newspaper or something.