I'm here

Good luck Anactoria!

I'm here, too! Good luck!

I definitely found it challenging at first, especially considering the sheer amount of work expected, but I jumped in with both feet, and I feel that that paid off. I think the concept I came up with was a very strong one, and my team members' contributions were very helpful, so I'm extremely proud of the final product.

It was a great task concept. I quite like media, although I don't study it. I feel as if it went okay however honestly it couldn't have gone worse. Real life timings, ie a Ke$ha concert leaving me with no access to my team for 24 hours, a computer breaking, a member of my team ignoring me & a member who went awol after the first night!

I do think it went okay given the situation, though, even if I had no frontpage.

I'm glad to hear you found it went well, what did you think of your rival's products?

I see, and I know you had a lot of problems with this tas, though I have to ask, you very strongly wanted to make the top two, but considering you had the concert etc, where you always going to struggle?
Also, as I asked Ana, what did you think of her idea?

Overall, I think my end product was stronger and had more thought put into it. Carlisle seemed to be focused mostly on the 'NOTW replacement' idea, producing a very typical tabloid, whilst my concept was much more fleshed out, with many more planned features and more of a focus upon the target market.

Yours did seem very planned and well thought out, but I do have a couple of queries about it; firstly, yours did seem to have a very niche market, but I question is it too narrow minded considering this was meant to be a nationwide newspaper, what do you think in regards to that?

I don't think I would have struggled just based on the concert and lack of time alone! I delegated roles between the two members of my team which actually paid any attention to me & the team in general on the Tuesday night. I was expecting to wake up on Thursday with a logo, frontpage from Seth & 3-6 example articles from Mary!

I woke up with a big fat nothing and had to do everything by myself.

In regards to Anactoria's paper... Well, I liked it. But I don't think it stuck to the brief all that much, to be honest. The content & everything surrounding the content seemed to be more of a magazine rather than a newspaper. You very much asked for a newspaper. I stuck to the brief and i don't feel that she did which is probably the only criticism. I love the word 'Urbanite' though for the target market & the details behind the magazine could probably work, but not as a newspaper!

I seee your points here and all, but I have to ask Carlisle, once the task was announced, on the Monday night I came back to find messages from my aides panicking as there was talk that you were wanting to give up as you couldn't see how you were going to manage it etc? What do you have to say in regards to this? It really can be seen as a big weakness, and especially considering how close it was at the interviews, makes me question a lot too, but what do you have to say about it all?

In my defense, I stuck to the brief. I provided a replacement for the NOTW which totally was a replacement.

I ensured that it had all of the tabloids because our main focus in regards to customers were the people who were let down horribly by the News of the World.

News of the World sold so much. Our market research supported this and I felt as if a paper which was similar in the style but a paper which was proud of having learned from their mistakes and becoming the old News of the World. The paper that sold millions of copies every week.

(Hey all, good luck!)

I have a question to both Ana & Carlisle.

Carlisle - How would you describe your attitude during this task due to your lack of team? A defeatist attitude perhaps?

Ana - Just echoing what the others have said, how would you differentiate your newspaper from a typical magazine?

I don't believe that the 'young urbanite' target market is niche at all; it's a massive (and growing) market, especially with the expanding graduate population in places like London. Whilst I agree that we would focus on town- and city-dwellers, the vast majority of the population lives in urban areas, and we would only be taking advantage of that. I'd also like to point out that we included a wide range of topics in our paper, many of which would also appeal to people outside of our planned target market.

Also, I have a real problem with Carlisle's assertion that our newspaper is 'more of a magazine' - it's not, at all, and I have to question whether he actually read our pitch. The one aspect of our newspaper that might seem out of place is the front cover, which we justified in detail in the thread. We included topics that would fit in a newspaper setting (news/politics, sports, culture), we focused on features that are typically included in newspapers (letters to the editor, op-eds, etc.) - how is this not a newspaper?

Thats completely right. I did ask if I could be replaced by Gav because everything was against me. I did have somewhat of a defeatist attitude for some reason because at the time I did not see any point in continuing. I was stuck on a team with only one person who proved themselves a worthy contestant (Sorry Seth, I know you would've been a great aide had your computer not broke!).

Going against not one but two English students was obviously going to be a huge disadvantage to me but I definitely regret what happened on Monday night & I can honestly say it has been the first 'blip' I've had in this competition.

I feel as if the way I really came back from that rough time and did everything by myself was a great way of showing my determination because I spent hours working on my concept and the ideas behind my paper and I do feel as if the work paid off. Even if I was not to win (and I do think I have at least a chance at winning basing it on everything) I still think that the effort I put in paid off, it showed I was not a giver upper and I do go out of my way to pull out all of the stops. I could have easily just given up or refused to do anything, and I was very close due to the ridiculous circumstances that were surrounding me. I am very apologetic about trying to quit and I am glad I perservered and strengthened in this process from this final task.

Sorry, I'm repeating myself a bit here - I would regard the main 'magazine-style' aspect of our newspaper to be the front cover, which we did justify in the thread itself. Otherwise, I think it's very much a newspaper rather than a magazine - yes, it includes some magazine-style features to appeal to the younger audience, but none of those would seem out of place in a newspaper.

The Notion would include a wide range of topics, which magazines generally don't, ranging from news and politics to sports and fashion. It would be printed on newspaper-style paper and be sold in the newspaper section, and the op-eds and supplements would all be what is expected of a Sunday newspaper.

Hey Ana, I can see why the "magazine" accusation was pointed out, as I also found aspects of the newspaper to be similar to something I would read out of Radiotimes, perhaps there was atleast a common ground between a newspaper/magazine in your newspaper?

I think the thing you have to remember if I am aware of the disadvatage you may have had, I understand you had nothing from Poth and Seth because Seth had computer problems etc; and to your credit, it did do well/ But I think you need to remember, everything is considering here; yes I am aware that you have a poorer team and will have to do more work yourself, but that shouldn't stop you from trying. If anything, if you are able to produce something great bascially off your own back, do you not see how that REALLY could have changed things; but when I ehar you automatically wanted to give up, be it a blip or whatever, alarm bells do start going off in my head..

I sort of answered this in my previous answer, however I would like to say that I think it opposes the defeatist attitude? I really pulled my finger out and spent hours working very hard on everything. I don't think thats really a defeatist attitude?

However, I do of course see your point. It got off to a very rocky start and unfortunately for myself continued badly until the final day where everything really began coming together, all from my contributions of course.

The fact I was able to do as much as I did ALL by myself, with 24 hours less time to work than Anactoria, plus schooling commitments, whereas she had 24 hours longer than me, not to mention the time I spent at school, with TWO hard working people on her team, including an english student who finished in 3rd place (and was very worthy of a final placement).

The odds were stacked up against me and the only help I got throughout the ENTIRE task was Tyjet helping me with the news article, and I had to spoonfeed him how to write it anyway, meaning it would've been so much quicker just doing it myself. I thank him for volunteering his assistance, but he was more of a hindrance because he even asked (and I quote) "How do I write an article?".

Carlisle, in all honesty, we were really disappointed when you wanted to "quit" so I'm glad to see you're apologetic over it, but do you see how it still may look bad? I.e. the reason why Lord Sugar placed you in the top 2 was because of your determination in the interview process but you completely lost that spark during the early moments in this task?

Actually, I did read your pitch, all of it in fact, and I think Aliyah hit the nail on the head with her post above. Have you read your own pitch from start to finish before posting it? Although it flowed well, you were very much describing a magazine rather than a newspaper, the actual brief.


I totally agree with this, unfortunately. It made me look really bad, and I apologize for that. I don't think that should really be taken in to account though because I proved that I could jump that hurdle with flying colours.

I can understand the suggestion that there was a 'common ground' - aside from the front cover, our newspaper was more features-based than the typical newspaper; we decided to go for this approach firstly to make it more appealing to our target audience, and secondly to stress the very opinionated and diverse nature of The Notion.

But Carlisle's suggestion that we didn't stick to the brief is kind of ridiculous, IMO - aside from the cover, none of the things we included in our pitch would actually be out of place in a typical Sunday newspaper, especially considering the large numbers of supplements typically available.

Sorry to interupt but just to say I did not recieve 1 PM or MSN Message from Carlisle...