Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Hmm …

… Aging Newspaper Audience Presents Business Challenges | Newspaper Death Watch. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)


The news industry’s challenge is to find products that appeal to young readers …
I disagree. For one thing, the news industry has been trying to do that for decades. Its challenge is to put out something worth reading. If you picked up a paper and found yourself reading most of the stories all the way through, you'd pick up that paper again. Assuming that the only thing people are interested in is sports and gossip, and using the paper to propagandize for the politicians of your choice is a sure way to turn off lots of people. Good sports coverage is a necessity, because a lot of people are interested in sports. But a lot fewer are dependent on newspapers for their sports fixes these days. And tossing in your two cents on things people can learn about just about anywhere is a waste of everybody's time. Go out and find things that people can't find elsewhere and write about those (trust me, I could name several in this city right off the top of my head) Newspapers are dying in large part due to lack of imagination on the part of those in charge of them, most of whom suffer from a paralyzing sense of nostalgia for their glory days. You can't get anywhere by only looking in the rearview mirror.

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