Can I create a newspaper type document with photos and words and save directly on my iPad?
If you want any document you create to keep itself in pages, you can turn off iCloud for pages in the settings menu. http://i.imgur.com/xHsVAJr.jpg      When iCloud is enabled, it will allow access to your most recent documents.

If you have an external PDF viewer and want the document to be read only, you can export it as a PDF file then open it in an app like Readdle's PDF Expert or Adobe's Acrobat Reader.