rethink of my main article idea

Having to rethink my main article idea due to as this is a news story it doesn't really fit in with the articles that are found in regional magazines. I wanted to challenge convention and though up of doing a up to date news story and do an article on the missing students in durham however after emailing some regional magazines editors to ask about articles they have in there magazine and they general say that they do articles that will last a month instead of having current news story. I have also noticed that the articles found in regional magazines are more aimed at a women then men. With articles about fashion and buying stuff for the home. This is why I've descided on two options for my main article  and ageist the news article as there is no target market for this type of article and it would not fit in with the conventions of this magazine. Here are some emails that I got form some of the editors for other regional magazine answering the question on why they did not do up to date news story in there magazine. 

Hi Siobhan,

In journalism there is a distinction between news (things that are happening now and need to be reported immediately) and features (things that do not have to be published immediately but often look behind the news or at people who have been in the news).

The magazine tends to have features rather than news because it is intended to last for a whole month until the next one comes out. We want the stuff in the magazine to have as long a life as possible so it is still worth picking up several days after publication.

We pick the contents like this - we look at what is happening in the month the magazine is to cover. First we include things that have to be included (because they are really big or significant) and if there's room after that, we'll choose the things we fancy writing about and that we think our readers will find interesting.

Hope this helps,

Dave,

Culture

Some of the stories we run are time-sensitive and are linked to something in the news – ie the Magna Carta exhibition in Durham, the 50^th anniversary of the Landmark Trust, an exhibition in our area by a local artist, a new book by someone – but we wouldn’t just use the bare facts as you would in a news story. We want to talk in more detail to the people involved, investigate the history of something, add in lots of colour.

Other stories have no time sensitive link – we just run them because, for example, we have heard that someone has a lovely home and ask them if we can do a piece on it, or we might ask a restaurant if we can talk to their chef and run a recipe, simply because our readers expect to see this kind of subject in the mag each month, and we can also get advertising on the back of homes and food features etc

Hope this helps

Jenny Needham | Features Editor
________________________________________ 
Newsquest (Yorkshire & North East) Ltd

One idea was to write about the attractions on the riverside of Durham calling the article the golden mile of Durham. having all the pubs and restaurants in one article would work well in a regional magazine. 

 The other idea was to do an article on a fashion shop in Durham. This would link in with the target audience of regional magazines and follow the conventions of having articles in there about fashion. 

I've decided that i want to have the magazine target audience aimed at females so Im going to go with the fashion shop article over the attractions on the riverside article. I've called up one of the fashion shops in Durham (Anderson of Durham) and I've planned to have an interview soon with the manager of the shop. 

http://www.andersonsofdurham.com/en/


Andersons of Durham
Durham Indoor Market
Durham City
County Durham
DH1 3NJ

0191 386 1110