307MC Final Project Proposal Presentation

Nicole Whitlam                         Final Project Presentation

I am intending to produce a crime magazine aimed at both males and females between the ages of 16 to 25. As a journalist I wanted to create an artefact that will reflect the past three years of compiling different articles and features and show my skills and how they will work in a product. I chose crime as it is my specialist area and I enjoy both reading and writing about crime, I tried to utilise it throughout my university work and feel that this is a perfect opportunity to showcase how I can work with crime and what I want to achieve in my future career.

I have chosen to aim the magazine at this specific audience of males and females between the ages of 16 to 25 because this is the demographic that you wouldn’t automatically assume to have an interest in crime thus giving me a challenge but I believe if they do start an interest in crime, they will be able to help fight crime and have a better understanding of not committing crime, because they are the current generation, and are usually the audience of magazines on the shelves nowadays. I think crime is a part of everyday life unfortunately and it happens all over the country, so making them aware of it matters to not only the magazine but to the country.

I will use red, white and black when designing my magazine as these are not only striking and cleverly juxtaposing colours but it goes well along with crime as they are sinister colours, if I used bright and happy colours that are usually associated with the demographic, they won’t take the magazine seriously. I will be using images cleverly juxtaposed with articles and a lot of academic writing, to make the magazine worthy of being on the market. The content will reflect the design outcome as I want to feature not only latest crime news, but investigative features, criminal profiles and a CrimeWatch style help page, in comparison to the usual ‘agony aunt’ pages we see in magazines, these will be closely linked with police when I use appeals and press releases from them.

To make my final project into a practical product I will not only include my featured articles I will also produce a full and complete magazine, along with the final design ideas and concept. To make my project go as a far as I can I will also produce a blog type website to go along with my magazine, which will be a web version of the magazine but also a forum where the audience can discuss issues that have been mentioned within the magazine and where they can share information with other people and the police about crimes that have happened, which will be acting as a CrimeWatch subsidiary. I think producing a secondary website will be a good idea because even though it is print that I want a career in, I understand that as technology is developing by the day, I need to contend with the current market. A website in comparison to a magazine is more digestible, easier to read, you can choose what features you want to look at from different menus instead of looking through a whole magazine, and it’s convenient because you can access it everywhere now on handheld computers and your phone and the majority of the time, websites are free.  

Currently on the market are Master Detective, True Crime, True Detective and Murder Most Foul. These are all print magazines; however, through research I have found that these are only available in America. Whilst trying to look for the current readership figures of these magazines, they are not even in the top 100 magazines in America; this made me question a few things; is this because they are not a popular magazine genre choice? Is the design of these magazines outdated? Do people want to read about crime? What I have to think about is that these magazines are only in America, and there currently isn’t a published magazine about crime here in the UK. Therefore there is a gap in the market for my idea. When looking at newspapers daily and thinking about news values, what makes headline news? Crime. As taboo as it may sound, people are naturally interested in wanting to know what things people do and have been victim to, looking at Freud’s theory, and why we also watch horror films, is because it satisfies our inner desire, because we know ourselves we can’t just go out and commit a heinous crime, but if other people do, we find it interesting. I want to take these ideas and put my product forward, to compete with other general magazines, but to also show the Americans, crime can create interest.

There is also a website that reflects what I want to achieve; http://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/home.html It includes past and present stories, draws upon audience’s response and also tells stories via videos and investigative features. I think it is a very useful website if you want not only a professional police version of events but an academic overview of why and how events happen. It acts as a magazine website which is a good idea as many people use websites more now instead of magazines and newspapers because they are more digestible and compact.

http://crimemagazine.com/ describes itself as an encyclopaedia of crime. It has a huge archive of crime but this website acts more of a historic website where you can find information from the past instead of present issues. It also charges a subscription which makes it more exclusive to the audience. 

CrimeWatch on BBC1 is also a key player in influencing my decision to produce a magazine and website that work on a CrimeWatch basis, this month’s episode attracted, according to barb.co.uk, the broadcasters audience research board, 4.46 million viewers, so it shows that people are interested in current crimes and also in helping to fight crime in Britain.

Again, I will be different in this choice because I will be producing something that isn’t currently on the market. It will commercially and ethically challenge what magazines we are currently used to seeing on shelves because have we ever thought about why there isn’t a crime magazine here in Britain? Is it because police and government try and hide the truth from us? If I abide by journalism law and work within these confinements I believe I can produce a product that will stir new interest in print journalism and also in helping fight crime.

I intend to carry out my project slowly and in-depth, I know what I want to do so I now need to organise how I’m going to achieve this. Therefore I have set up a timeline; before Christmas I have completed the majority of research, including design features, extra audience research, article ideas and my main investigative feature, what will work and what wont. Then in January I will start designing the magazine, compiling what I want where and writing my feature articles, this will take some time as I will have other university work and I also have work outside university. Around Easter time I will be able to work on my website and uploading articles on to it, and finishing off the magazine. Nearer the May deadline I will need to keep a close look on current articles and also watching the present CrimeWatch to compile my latest news feature and my CrimeWatch help feature, I want my magazine to be as up to date as it can be so therefore these features need to be as late as possible, the magazine will be ready for me to slot in the articles at this time, and this will also mean I will be working like a real magazine would in a professional workspace. The resources I will need to do this, which I have already started compiling is past news articles, past crime profiles which I have collected from The People newspaper crime supplements and also books including 101 Crimes. I also need to use the websites mentioned and CrimeWatch to influence my work and to keep an eye on what is current and what people are interested in. As technology goes I will be using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign to produce my magazine, which I have been practising with and getting use to so I feel confident enough when it comes to putting my work together. When I need to use theory I will be taking influence from John Pilger’s book, Investigative Journalism, The best American Crime Reporting 2010 by Otto Penzler, which even though it is American it will influence me from an International viewpoint and might also give me ideas for different stories that will reach out to a wider audience. From an academic view, Chris Frost’s Designing for newspapers and magazines will give me guidance on magazine design conventions, Writing for Magazines: A beginners guide by Cheryl Wray, again will give me the knowledge to help me write articles and features suitable for a magazine. As I want to write crime, I will need to look at the legal side of writing news stories according to the law, therefore I need to look at McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists and Crime, Justice and the Media by Ian Marsh and Gaynor Melville, these will guide me in reporting what is suitable and what I should report to inform the audience about crime. I will also need to use police press releases and appeals to help compile my ‘wanted’ page. For my investigative features I will also use Ross Kemp’s extreme world television programme, as I found it interesting and he made me aware of issues in other parts of the world including Mexico’s war on drugs and rape gangs in Africa.

I am feeling apprehensive about the upcoming months as I understand I have a lot of work to do but I am excited and feel that if I stick to my timeline and keep organised I will be able to produce a product to a high standard and to showcase my ability to a high level.

Add a comment January 16, 2012