Headline options

The front page headlines of the Daily Mail are usually short and snappy, then being followed by a longer sub heading to further explain what the story is relating to. I have come up with some options for my article, each being a separate combination to complement eachother...

“A COWARDLY ACT OF HATRED AND REJECTION”

Teenage boys go on a rampage through their own school, shooting thirty-two victims dead, then committing suicide.

“TEENAGE RAMPAGE”

Threesome leaves a path of death and destruction through secondary school

“WE ADMIT THEY COULD HAVE BEEN STOPPED”

Police confess they didn’t do all they could to stop three teenage boys from shooting through a school, as their planning is displayed on a blogging website

The headlines will be one of these or very much similar to one of these, and maybe even a combination of all three.

Image sketches for article

The image for the headline/front page will be a poignant image of two people embracing outside the school, maybe crying but definitely looking very shocked and bewildered. This is to capture a personal moment like the Daily Mail likes to feature. The simple sketch below displays how I want to capture the image, angle wise...

The internal image will be of a more eerie and intimate image of the school. It will show a deserted corridor with maybe some tape or signs towards the end. It will be a spooky contrast to what went on just hours before. If possible there could be some forensic investigations going on towards the end, this will add more interest to the images.

Also included will be a map of the school with routes drawn out and other information indicated on it in different colours. This will need to be drawn to scale and accurately reproduced by myself.

Draft of article

This is the first draft of my article text to be featured on the first page and then carried on to pages 2 and 3...

A group of three teenagers, aged 16 to 18 have opened fire on fellow students and teachers at a school in Bexleyheath, Kent. Thirty-five people have died, including themselves, following their rampage which according to a discovered “blog website” was fuelled by their “hatred for society and continuing struggle to fit in”. Two sixteen year old boys [NAME] and [NAME] were accompanied by 18 year old [NAME] on their killing spree yesterday.

The rampage started at around 9:10am GMT when the first gunshots were heard by teachers in the main hall. The first phone call to the local police reporting of “large noises sounding like gun shots or bombs” was recorded at 9.18am, just 8 minutes after the first shot was fired, and the first victim fell.

The group entered the school through the front doors, which usually aren’t used by students, at 9:09am and within a minute their first victim, 45 year old office worker Mandy Drew, had been shot through the forehead and died instantly. This caused significant alarm to the pupils who were travelling to their first lessons as chaos broke out and children of all ages started to flee to ‘safety’. “I remember seeing Mrs Drew fall from her chair and then glancing towards the front of her desk and just seeing a gun, I knew then that something was wrong and that I had to run” recounted Sophie Adams, aged just 11 and in her first year of secondary school. With the now flurry of fleeing students it was seemingly easy for the threesome to pass through the crowd unidentified and swiftly. They moved up the nearest flight of stairs to enter the staffroom, there were approximately 20 members of staff in the room at the time of their entrance, and within 2 minutes four of them were dead, five of them injured due to shattered windows and shrapnel from surrounding furniture being hit with bullets. 27 year old Mathematics teachers Jessica Shaw took refuge under the table at the back of the room and tells us of her terror; “You hear about these events on the news and just take in all the facts and information, sympathising with the victims but it’s not until you have two six foot boys standing in the same room as you holding (the location of the other perpetrator is unknown at this point) handguns to your fellow employees temples that you realise how horrific it really is. I have never been so scared for my life and for others as I was in that room and I know that it changed my life forever, I will never trust anyone in the same way again”.

It is believed that said two then joint Haseem back in the corridor where evidence of ammunition and bullets suggest he was reloading or having trouble with his handgun. They then shot seven girls on their journey into the canteen, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their path. Kent county police believe that a homemade bomb, carried in a rucksack, was then detonated within the small confines of the canteen, this however wasn’t as destructive as the boys had hoped as one witness claims “They seemed to get angry about the failure of the bomb, it didn’t do anything apart from create a lot of smoke…that’s when they started shooting randomly into the smoke, killing whoever was in their way”. This proved to be their most successful and fatal move as they managed to kill 15 people in the space of a 6 minute shooting spree. However it is believed that the boys thought they had killed a lot more than they actually had, due to many passing out from the toxic fumes coming from the detonated bomb in the corner. Many hid under the tables and escaped with minor injuries, however the mental damages are sure to be much more apparent as the reality of what has happened sinks in further.

The boys then went on their final journey through the school, “passing bodies without a flicker of remorse” shooting a further 4 pupils, both male and female and a member of staff, believed to have crawled from the staff room down two flights of stairs to use the office phone to get help. The three boys exited the building through the front door at approximately 9:52am GMT, they lined up on the steps leading to the office and in perfect synchronisation each lifted their guns to their temples, pulled their triggers and shot themselves, all falling to the floor in a heap, at exactly the same time. This was captured on camera by several students and passers-by, but more eerily it was seen by many of the students and teachers who had taken refuge by exiting the school through the front or side doors. It had taken the police 3 and a half minutes to arrive at the scene but the SWAT team hadn’t arrived in time to see this. The local police force weren’t allowed to enter the building as they were unsure as to what was behind the doors and what was to become of them if they entered, the building had also been put into lock down, nobody was allowed in or out, despite the pupils and teachers fleeing from fire exits and lower windows.

The three boys are believed to have been friend since they started the school in year 7 and have always had positive reports, with one teacher describing {NAME] as a “delightful student to teach”. They have no previous criminal convictions, with one of them having a formal warning for being rowdy on the streets back in 2009. However further investigations at [NAME’S] house has led the police search to a note card with a simple website address scrawled on and left on his pillow. This website is in a blog format and has seemingly been set up 2 years ago by the trio. It documents their preparation for this spree and gives every detail, almost compiling a storyboard for how they went about planning this horrific episode. Inspector Dawn Potter released a statement at 11:03pm GMT last night stating “We have closed our searching of the perpetrators houses and have moved our attention to our findings on the internet. The website has been taken down and all traces of it removed from the general public. This is a very concerning matter we have in our hands and we wish to deal with it in the best way possible”. She was later criticised for not mentioning any of the thirty two other victims and their families.

The school has been closed to allow for the forensic teams to enter and for the police to gather their evidence, it is unknown as to how long this will take and what damage has been done to school property. However it has been rumoured that the school will now remain shut for the rest of the term, with some students being transferred and taught in a different location. It is unknown as to how long this procedure is going to take and whether all students will be involved or just ones with upcoming exams.

Families of the victims are still being informed, with lists of survivors’ names being put up on a website. This is obviously a very worrying time for parents as their child’s name may not be up on the website yet due to there being approximately 2000 pupils present yesterday. Parent Jenny Humphries told us this morning “I didn’t know [my daughter] was alive until 7 hours after the news first broke, that was solely the worse 7 hours of waiting in my whole life. I can’t imagine what people must be feeling now if their child’s name isn’t up yet”. A police representative issued the following notice “We are doing all we can, and as quickly as possible, to inform all parents of their child’s whereabouts, however this may take longer than anticipated given the circumstances and the emergence of other information being given at any time. We respect that this is a hard time and cannot express our sympathy enough, however we ask for your patience if you wish for this to be done thoroughly and to the best of our ability”. A representative from the school is yet to comment.

Further layout of article (Pages 2-3)

Having studied the articles once they have developed onto (usually) pages 2 and 3 I have laid out a demonstration of what I want my article to look like inside the newspaper. This is following the codes and conventions of the Daily Mail with a few ideas from other newspapers I have seen.

• The blue box situated at the top will hold a further headline which is longer and more specific to the story, this is featured in nearly all the Daily Mails that I looked at.
• The orange L shaped box is where the story will be carried on from the front page, this will start with the usual "continued from page 1" and will then continue from where it was left.
• The green boxes indicate where the images are going to be placed, the three small ones being images of the shooters, the large one being a scene in the school and then the strip down the right hand side is going to be plans and maps of the school and route to shooter took, just like in the Guardian and Mail that I looked at for the cruise liner sinking.
• Finally the red box will include a little summary of the story to grab the readers attention and to inform them as to what the story is about, because the headlines may not give off that much information about the event and so can offer some further information.

Article plan.

I have decided that my article is going to be based on a shooter much like the events in Norway that I studied. However the shooter will be in a school, much like seen before but this will be large scale and widely reported, this will therefore mean there would be a competition for the best and most eye catching story between most tabloids.
Introduction:

• Will highlight the background information of the location of the school and the perpetrators of the shooting. These are likely to be a gang or group of boys from a surrounding area. 
• It will then give a brief description of what happened, giving some information and shocking facts but not completely giving away the story. Therefore making the audience continue. The story will then continue onto the next page with the full story.

Body of article:

• The main body of the article will go into the details of the attack, the full account of the story and step by step accounts of the events.
• It will also cover quotes and interviews from teachers, pupils, families of the victims and from members of the local police and Scotland Yard.
• It will also have details of what is being done following the attacks and how the community is dealing with the grief etc.
• There will then be a feature on the shooters, their backgrounds, their upbringings and families. The public usually like to know every detail about them so this will be included.
• There will then be information on the victims and stories about them, with comments from their classmates, friends and teachers.
• There will be quotes enlarged in places across the pages as to draw in the reader and make them read what that quite is referring to.
• Included will be references and comparisons to previous events like this such as Columbine etc.

Conclusion:

• Discuss what is now being done at the site of the school and how the families are dealing with their losses.
• Probably include information for a planned funeral service and what mourners can do for the lost lives.

In general the article will be set out in a simple format, with an equal text to image ration. It will also contain more facts than opinion and will have informative diagrams and map to give the audience further information.

Page layout

 Following my decision to use the Daily Mail as a style model I found it helpful to study various examples of the newspaper with different stories to view how they are laid out. A few examples of the Daily Mail front pages are below.

As displayed above they all have a similar layout and following this investigation I came up with the following layout which I will stick to for my article.

• I kept it simple with the sections clearly divided and so it doesn't get too complicated. Also I didn't use overlapping images or anything like that as it could get a bit overwhelming, especially if the images are complicated.
• I kept the text to a minimum as this wouldn't attract a reader as much from a far away distance and a picture can say a lot about the story. They can also tell much more of the story too.
• I decided to put the headline at the top as despite previously saying that the twist on the Guardian article with the smaller and lower down headline being a modern twist this isn't conventional of the Daily Mail and it wouldn't be true to their usual style.
• I will also attempt to create the Daily Mail header and that will be placed where it always is, at the top in the centre.

Style model decision.

Following the analysis of the Daily Mail and the Guardian I have to make a decision as to which newspaper I shall use as my style model. I shall go about this weighing up the positives and negatives of both.

The Daily Mail:

• Uses a more informal tone for their stories and makes the reader feel more familiar with their writers, this may be a techniques used to build a fan base or gain more readers.
• Has more eye catching images and uses more controversial pictures within their coverage. This adds more risk factor but also adds much more interest and depth to the story.
• I also prefer the way this newspaper is set out with quite a simple layout but this is effective as it is easy to read and easy to understand, whereas with the Guardian I found it hard to find where the story carries on which throws off the reader and loses the flow of the story.
• I preferred the way that the Daily Mail picked one main story to feature on the front cover and not to combine many stories onto one page so it didn't get confusing. This also focused on their most important story of the day.

The Guardian:

• I liked the way that the Guardian, being a broadsheet newspaper, could fit more than one story on the front page which could allow the target audience to be wider as they could include a variety of stories within the front page with very different subject matters.
• The large space on the front page also allows for the images used to be much larger, however for this story I don't feel like they took advantage of this idea as they could have had much more coverage on the front concerning the biggest story in the world at that point.
• I like the way the Guardian hasn't followed the conventional headline at the top of the page in massive writing like all the rest do as it makes it stand out in the stand of newspapers and adds a modern twist to.
• I preferred the way that this retelling of the story contained more fact than opinion (which isn't the case for the Daily Mail) as it makes the reader trust the story more and also allows them to feel more informed.

Ideas to take from both newspapers:

• I really like the use of diagrams that both newspapers used. It provides an insight for the reader as it helps them to understand what was going on and gives a more in depth and interesting approach to telling the story.
• I also like the images to text ratio of both with them having almost half and half for the images and text.
• I also like the variety of images, from their use of images taken during the event and then the aftermath and following, with the investigation taking place and the searching for the bodies etc

Decision: I have decided to use the Daily Mail as my style model as it would be more appropriate as I feel I could grasp their style of writing better as a more informal tone is used. However I will be gaining some inspiration from the Guardian example as it has some good ideas and examples of how to relay a story, with the most efficiency.