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How to create an Online Newspaper
A tutorial on how to create a website like this one !
Oct. 5, 2023
Selena - RCP Newspaper
In Mrs. Leung's Web Design 10 Class, creating a news website has been the main focus of the course. This is what we've learned so far in class! This goes for any website, however, arranging your graphics on a newspaper website is incredibly important and a little tricky to grasp. Tips and tricks on how to design and create your unique site are all here! In this guide, you'll learn how to make your website set up to be visually appealing and practical.
How to make a news web:
Step 1: Define your goals for creating this website
Step 2: Having/collecting material to write about
Step 3: Creating the layout & design
One important thing: to any future site makers, the most important thing is knowing what you value the most in the digital space, whether it be creating something new or spreading the news you care about. The integral part of all sites like this is your authenticity and integrity, so you have to care about what you're talking about.
Let's get more into detail about these steps.
Step 1. Defining your goals
Making a newspaper website is not often too common for people who don't go into journalism, so you need to outline why you want to create this website and what you hope to achieve with it above all else. Are you trying to spread activism for an issue? Do you enjoy writing? Are you passionate about the stories of ordinary people? Are you planning on having multiple writers? These are some questions you should ask. Having a definitive aim with this website makes the writing processes much easier and helps remind you what you want to do when you get stuck on something creatively. This is important, if you're trying to pump out news on a regular basis, you're going to need the motivation and reminders to keep going because of how swamped it can get and ultimately run out of steam.
If you're not quite sure exactly what you're hoping to achieve, you can find other popular news outlets and take inspiration. It doesn't necessarily have to be about the general news of the world, but your interests that you're passionate about, or things you're interested in and can learn in the process of telling others. You just have to want to do it.
It can be good to write out or plan things you want to talk about in advance and make notes of what's most important in them.
Step 2. Having/collecting material to write about
Continuing on from that last statement, making sure you actually have content to put on the site is obviously essential. It can be difficult to get in contact with the people you want to interview for more information if you're not trying to interview locals, so you'll need to build your social presence.
Now, this sounds difficult, and it can be. However, people of the age favour authenticity, and so if you do decide to promote your platform, you're going to need to do earnest advertising. Not evidently desperate to get their view time, but honestly saying you'd appreciate their care and attention.
When you do have a following, or if you already did, you can get to work on researching your favoured topics. Since so much information is readily available thanks to the many other articles that exist, you can use those to inspire and/or prove your opinions or statements. The writing style you choose does not have to be rigid and formal, use language that appeals to you and best accounts for who you are. As a reader, it will make you stick out to them and let them figure out what kind of person you are, and make them care about what you're saying.
The material that you want to write about should be consistent, making it more recognizable and easier to write about constantly. Make sure your source material has an abundance of information or hidden knowledge and capitalize on that.
Step 3. Creating the layout/design
The way newspapers have visually translated into the online look is interesting and similar but strangely different from the traditional papers, and to relate to the other news outlets, you'll need to conform to some of their layouts. Looking at other big news sites will greatly help you figure out how to structure your articles and pages.
You should use many images (always make sure to credit!) to help support your points and give a visual aid to the text. Your images are important, so they should be big and placed as enhancement to the stories you're telling, like emphasis on important statements. You always want to have your text and images aligned to the left to make it easier to read and not needing to adjust your reader's viewing constantly.
Headlines need to have all the keywords of your articles, like an extremely brief summary of the situation and can be playful to grab your readers' attention. They are meant to be the centre of attention, so make sure they stand out from the rest of the page. They're most often black or white to accentuate the importance of the subject.
Designing can be an entirely different challenge, though. The easiest tip is to pick a colour scheme and make sure all of your website sticks to it. Colour palettes are usually neutrals, like this site, or just plain black and white, to keep it simple and focus on the news. If you don't know much about colours and what goes well together, you can take a look at pre-made ones on the internet and go from there. The most important part of the design process is having appealing looking imagery that matches your colour scheme. Most commonly, it's photography, but you can get creative with things like manual art.
All of these things will spring your website into action and make it look and be professional. These are the key points to what makes a newspaper website, and some tips to making it look the part! Good luck!
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