The Daily Mirror News Task

The front page

The Facebook page

The Instagram page

The Twitter page

The website

1. Explain your role/responsibility within the team and the task. What were you required to do?

Within the team, I worked with Abbie and Cherish to produce the front cover of a physical copy of the Daily Mirror. This included choosing appropriate stories for the platform, creating the headlines and adding images. We then designed the layout of the page to make all of it fit together and produce a finished cover.

2. For one media form, describe the codes and conventions you chose to follow and explain their intended impact.

 When making the front cover, we immediately knew that, as a tabloid, the Daily Mirror was more likely to feature large amounts of image content than a broadsheet newspaper such as the Daily Telegraph. Printed copies of the Daily Mirror certainly have larger image content than the website or social media pages, as this will allow the cover to catch potential readers from afar in a way that is not necessitated by a website or social media. The large image of David Davis that we chose for our cover is very relevant to the article about Brexit. We intentionally chose an image that was not posed, as this allowed us to portray him as perhaps "CONFUSED" in the caption, which conveys the Daily Mirror's lack of support for Brexit. Beginning the image caption with a single capitalised word and then having the actual description for the picture is also a common convention of the Daily Mirror that we reflected in our own version. The inclusion of an advert for Tesco on the front page also shows the Mirror's conventional way of making money through printed advertisements, as well as being targeted towards the Mirror's less affluent audience who would not be shopping at a more expensive store. This cover of the Mirror will appeal to the audience by reflecting their own views and by adhering to the familiar brand identity of the newspaper.

3. Explain how your choices reflect the real newspaper's values and target audience. 

The front page has a clear and immediate presentation of the Mirror's left-wing political stance, shown through the description of the Brexit deal as 'shoddy' and the politician involved as 'diabolical'. The standfirst continues this negative attitude towards Britain's EU-leaving deal, which goes further still to cement the newspaper's position as left-wing.
With the exception of Brexit, the stories were chosen because they were not terribly specific financial or economic stories, which traditionally would not appeal to the Daily Mirror's audience of lower socioeconomic grades. As a result of this, we included alliteration and hyperbole in the headlines to create humour and entertain the target audience through a sensational portrayal of events - a technique also seen in the real Mirror.


4. Explain how your team adapted the news across the three different media forms and the reasons behind your decisions.
 Upon receiving the brief, we knew that some stories could be shown on all three platforms according to their level of importance. For this reason, the Iraq story was featured on all three. However, we felt that stories like the Frozen Finger Fiasco would be better if they were shown in print due to their comical nature, which would allow for a word play headline and contribute to the appeal in the print version. This appeal through entertainment is a necessary one for the printed copy, as it is the only media form that the user must explicitly pay for.



5. In hindsight, is there anything about your team's outcomes that you would adapt or improve?

I think that our cover could have been improved if we had been more consistent with the design. For example, the font could have been made to stay the same across all instances of text, which would make the cover seen more professional. However, I think that the overall effect was achieved and that the cover is a clear presentation of Daily Mirror conventions.