Jones Newspaper Review

Overall, I think that Jones' "Blueprint" was a strong newspaper in terms quality of writing, however, I thought this one of the weaker newspapers we have reviewed so far with regards to layout, organization, and presentation. Although I can see how others might enjoy the overall presentation of the "Blueprint," I did not like many of the choices that the editors made about the "look" of the paper. One of the things I didn't like about the "Blueprint" was that all of the stories were organized into only four sections: opinions, sports, school, and lifestyle. I feel as though these categories are too general for the range of articles newspapers usually publish and that our selection of news, sports, arts and trends, student life, features, and opinions does a much better job organizing our newspaper. Another issue that I had with the "Blueprint" was that many of their articles were too long for a high school audience, or at least the students at WY. Although the "Blueprint" included several well-written and thorough articles, some of those pieces took up an entire page or the majority of a page on their own. For example, the article on page 4 titled, "Cultural Clash: Explaining Cultural Appropriation," literally took up the entirety of that page. As a high school student, when I see a wall of text that big in a school newspaper, I usually won't even bother to try and read that article because I know I won't finish it. Similarly, I thought the other two "Lifestyles" articles on page 5 and the  front page article were also too long for the intended audience. Lastly, I did not enjoy the header of the "Blueprint." I think that the header design looks as though someone simply drew the word "Blueprint" in pen using bubble letters and then sloppily colored it in. I think that the designs people can make using an actual design software like Photoshop look much more polished and professional than the header Jones' newspaper staff created.