I got the template from this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/bladesinthedark/comments/npsvaf/editable_doskvol_newspaper_template/
I figured since I haven't done a proper session journal in a little while, I'd write out a bit of a recap by means of breaking down what went into this edition of the Duskwall Metropolitan!
Starting us off in the top left, I've written a paragraph about how citizens of Doskvol are wary of going back to shopping in Nightmarket, even after the Spirit Wardens (seemingly) cleared it of its massive spectral influence and lifted its quarantine. This all happened after a gem belonging to Lord Scurlock containing hundreds of souls exploded during a heist gone wrong in a one-shot I'd played in with my group months before we started the campaign. Scurlock got blamed for the whole affair, went into hiding, and is now holed up in a tiny little apartment in Crow's Foot (which our PCs are now treating as their own turf after saving his life in the last score).
Moving over to the center of the page, we have an exclusive from Elstera Avrathi, giving an interview educating the populace on a pre-Calamity person of interest, Kotar. For those who have read through the back of the Blades in the Dark book, you'll know that Elstera Avrathi makes up one-seventh of the leadership of The Circle of Flame, a secret society of antiquarians and cultists who have been obsessed with acquiring the remains of Kotar. At the end of our most recent score, our scoundrels sold what they had assumed to be slightly cursed artifacts to The Circle of Flame, only for those artifacts to turn out to be the last remaining artifact they needed. Now equipped with the Eye, Hand, and Heart of Kotar, the Circle of Flame has found it prudent to teach the populace all they can about Kotar, who they're secretly trying to bring back to life.
Moving over to the right of the page, we learn about a horrific creature emerging from Bellwether Crematorium and terrorizing the streets of Charterhall. While the article implies that the Spirit Wardens were behind this, this was actually the opening engagement for our crew's heist on some cursed relics! They intended to only set a few ghosts on those Church stagecoaches, but accidentally ended up melding a dozen spirits into one massive, terrifying, electroplasmic entity. Sending one of those after a squad of Spirit Wardens and priests of The Church of Ecstasy proved VERY effective at distracting them long enough to steal some cursed artifacts.
Moving further down the page, we have a warning from the Voice of The Church about The Reconciled, a group of ghosts who haven't gone feral after their deaths and are very adept at possessing people. I wrote this up to illustrate how close The Church of Ecstasy is to filling their "Eliminate the Reconciled" clock. The group has shown a lot of out-of-character interest in the Reconciled (one of the PCs already fits the description of one), but there hasn't really been much of an in-character reason to seek them out. So, in our last downtime session, I introduced them to a few Reconciled, giving them plenty of connections and people they'd want to keep safe.
I didn't write the last paragraph; it was already included in the template. But I kept it in unchanged because I want to foreshadow The Sparkwrights and Lord Strangford coming into the picture. I really enjoy the idea of a conflict like "Leviathan Hunters are running out of electroplasm, Sparkwrights are trying to find alternative fuels to the lightning generators but keep getting assassinated." Plus, half of the PCs are already amateur inventors, so they'll have lots to learn/steal from the Sparkwrights.
And that's about it! I added a few other things for flavour like advertisements (men go for Gulden's mustard in a BIG way) and a sports section based off of our Hound's vice of gambling on goat races. It was really fun getting to write these little blurbs for my players, and I'm absolutely going to do it more in the future! Probably not for a little while though, our Ink Rakes need time to gather some more hot scoops.