31 August 2023

BFG006: newspaper

A local newspaper for the digital age.

News

• The paper presents news using a data model that focuses on Articles and Stories. An Article is a single news dispatch, and a Story is a collection of Articles in chronological order that reflects the development of an event over time. Readers can find out what is happening at a given time by reading current Articles, like they would with existing newspapers. However, they can also view Stories to get context and learn about long-running events.

• Articles have a date and time; a list of relevant locations, which can be a pair of coordinates or a region; a list of relevant categories; references to the Stories that contain them; and a version history.

• Stories have an ordered list of Articles; a list of primary categories; and a list of primary locations.

• The paper’s reporting focus is completely on the region being served. Articles covering events outside the local region are syndicated from other sources; the only services provided by the paper for non-local news are to determine which syndicated Articles to include and how they are ordered into Stories. The paper keeps local and non-local news in separate sections both online and in print. Each section has three primary views that can be accessed online: the current article view, the current story view, and the search view.

• The current article view is similar to the online views of existing newspapers. It consists of categories, such as arts, business, politics, and technology, and within each category is a list of Articles manually maintained by editors.

• The current story view is also manually maintained by editors, but it displays Stories rather than Articles. Readers can use it to track and review the history of ongoing events. Stories can be browsed by category or by location on an interactive map.

• The search view allows readers to find Articles and Stories by running queries on any of their fields.

Non-news

• The paper also runs local features and services. These might include opinion columns, letters, serialized books, classifieds, an events calendar, coupons and advertisements, life announcements, and weather.

Print

• The newspaper cuts a physical publication to be distributed weekly on Sundays. News to include is selected manually from the database by editors, and non-news is automatically pulled from the database. Typesetting is performed automatically and checked by editors. The newspaper is distributed on newsprint in a magazine format. Articles are printed on continuous pages, and the cover is a table of contents rather than a traditional newspaper front page.

Monetization

• News Articles can be read online for free via direct links. A non-subscriber might obtain these links if they are shared by a subscriber or listed in search engine results. However, access to Stories and online views requires a paid subscription.

• Some non-news services, like classifieds, might be made available online for free. Others, like the events calendar, might only be available to subscribers.

• Ads are only present in the dedicated coupons and advertisements section, and advertisers pay for inclusion. People also pay to post classifieds and life events.

• The physical paper can be bought individually at newsstands or as part of a subscription.