Luton newspapers

The Luton Herald & Post is a weekly newspaper and the operate online as well. It is distributed free to homes in South Bedfordshire on Thursdays.It was established in 1973 as one of the first free sheets in the United Kingdom and claims to be the market leader in Luton as each edition contains regularly contain over 200 pages. Other free papers are the Luton on Sunday which is delivered on Wednesdays, the Luton and Dunstable express which is delivered on Wednesdays and the Luton news which is the herald and post's sister paper which is delivered on a Wednesday.

National & Local codes and conventions

National & Local newspapers

Both national and local newspapers share similar conventions. Both have:

• Eye-catching photographs to entice the reader
• The photographs have captions to give the reader a summary as to what the story is about
• The masthead is very important. This is the newspapers title at the top. It is the newspapers identity
• A ‘byline’ is when the writer of the article states their name either before the article or after.
• They both have ‘pugs’. The pug is usually situated at the top left or right hand corner and it states the date and the price for the newspaper.
• The ‘banner headline’ is the main headline which spans across the whole width of the page. This is the big story which will encourage readers to buy the paper.
•  Under the banner headline is the ‘strap line’ which is a sentence that introduces the article and from this readers can decide whether or not they want to read the article.
• A ‘stand first’ is the first paragraph of the article which is usually written in bold to show how important it is.
• Finally the ‘splash’ is the biggest story in the paper so it will start on the front page and usually continue onto a few more pages. The splash will help the consumer to decide whether they want to buy the paper or not.

Even though national and local have major similarities they also differ in some ways. Local newspapers tend to have:

• Local stories
• A property section
• Job section
• Car section
• Classified ads

Research & Planning 

There are many different newspapers sold here in England. From tabloids to business. Each has their own purpose and USP.

 The Sun, is known as a ‘Red top tabloid’, meaning that they are very simplistic and straightforward. These are the papers which feature celebrity stories and ‘junk food news’. Red tops are often accused of sensationalising stories and causing controversy. Red tops tend to use puns as well ' He ain't out of the words yet' is a pun as they are talking about Tiger Woods and stating that he hasn't made his way 'out of the woods'. The name ‘red top’ comes from the fact that the newspapers use red mastheads. Other red top newspapers are : Daily star, Daily mirror and Daily sport.

Compact newspapers are more editorial and don’t feature so much ‘junk food news’. The term compact newspapers came from the daily mail as they didn’t want to be named as a tabloid as it has negative connotations. They feature political stories from capitalist to conservative stories. Compact newspapers are aimed at the middle class and up market society. The most popular compacts are the : Daily mail, Daily express & The Independent.

Broadsheets are usually perceived as being more intellectual and their readers tend to be well educated. Broadsheets in the UK are: The Financial times, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday times.