‘How do you cover a story that’s been everywhere?’ is a dilemma all editors have faced from time to time.
But a South Yorkshire free weekly still managed to come up with a novel approach to the floods that have been dominating headlines in the county this week.
The Dearne Valley Weekender splash which hit the streets yesterday was the brainchild of sub-editor Bob Evans.
He said the idea came into his head during a “sleepless night” as he agonised over to tackle the story.
Bob told HTFP: “I was having a sleepless night, having not had a glass of wine or two, and was thinking what I could do with the front page, bearing in mind it had been covered all over the country.
“It came into my head but I didn’t know whether it would work, so I came in early and mocked it up, showed new Rotherham Advertiser group editor Andrew Mosley and he liked it.”
Based in Mexborough, the Weekender is a free weekly paper delivered through 49,111 letter boxes across the Dearne and Don Valleys with a further 4,000 supermarket pick-ups.
It is part of the family-owned Garnett Dickinson group which also includes the Advertiser and the Rotherham Record.
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BRILLIANT! I love it . . . I love it . . . I love it . . . I love it . . . I love it . . .
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Carping, I know, but the pic should have been bigger. There would still have been room for several “and it rained….”s
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Sorry but that looks like something a work experience kid would do…
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Further to the comment above, our work experience kid was offended by that remark.
Very lazy front page.
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This is absolutely horrible.
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It’s a shocker … in every sense.
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Brilliant. Why not try something different? We all noticed it didn’t we?
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It’s certainly different and catches the eye, hence in my view it worked! But I don’t think the same could be done again for a long, long time, otherwise the effect would be lost. Rain, rain, go away etc.
I’m all for innovation, though.
Is the Queen planning a jubilee visit to your area? Then you could do a play on words with reign, reign etc.
Well done, Bob, look forward to seeing loads of sunshine on the front page someday…
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In a free weekly, why not? Shows a bit of personality, humour and affinity with its readers. Sadly lacking in many papers.
What would we usually get on this type of story….probably the old soaked chestnut…”Residents mop up after bla bla”.
Agree on pic use though, bigger or a couple more shots would have helped.
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It probably made readers smile but I suspect boy scouts could have done better. Bit silly but never mind. We’ve all seen worse fronts, and insides, than that.
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