levertovfan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
levertovfan) wrote2007-08-10 08:55 am
levertovfan) wrote2007-08-10 08:55 am
Blame our generation!
So I've been to two different events at the Central Library where there were a lot of people baby boom age or older blaming our generation or younger (generations X, Y, and Z) for changes in literacy-related services. The first was an event discussing the future of the publishing industry, featuring laments that my generation does not read; the second was a class last night discussing changes in the newspaper industry locally and nationally. The class featured one former Pioneer Press writer and one former and one current Star Tribune writer. Nationally, compared to older adults, the percentage of 32-25 year olds who read the newspaper is dropping, and the percentage of 18-24 year olds who read the newspaper is dropping even more. The Star Tribune has changed their look and their content to try to appeal to a younger audience, with the net result that they are alienating their core readership of older readers and seem not to really be attracting younger readers. (An additional element of that change is that the investment company that recently bought the Strib has done away with a huge percentage of its journalistic staff, so there is substantially less reporting going on.)
The Star Tribuners talked about a three hour long meeting that they had been forced to sit through on market research. The Star Tribune identified five audience segments, and chose to focus on only a few of them. They figured that they could ignore their core readership, the middle-aged and elderly who get the newspaper daily, because, in the words of a boss at the Strib, "they couldn't beat them off with a stick." They also figured that they could ignore the "elite readership," which they defined as people who got their national news from the New York Times and turned to the Strib for local news, because they were such a small percentage of the readership, about 5%. And instead, they decided to concentrate on attracting the market segment that gets their news from a wide variety of sources, which is disproportionately young people. In particular, they wanted to attract young women.
So they held a bunch of market research sessions on young people, and young women in particular. They discovered as a result that young people want news that is relevant to their life. As a result: the "experience" newspaper, with one parts information that young people will find relevant to their lives to two parts content. However, in the words of one of the reporters, if you are a young person and don't already know where to go in the Twin Cities to get laid, an article on the subject isn't going to help.
The market research also discovered that their favored market niche, young women, want entertainment news, aka news on Britney Spears et al and updates on their favorite television shows. Alas for the Strib and the people who have altered the newspaper to reflect those preferences, if young women want entertainment news, they will most easily satisfy that need by buying magazines and tabloids in the check-out line, not the newspaper. So the Strib is driving away it's core constituency in order to try to appeal to people who probably won't really read it anyway.
One of the themes throughout the presentation was that newspaper editors nationally have learned that presenting controversy will not play well to their corporate owners, so a lot of journalists who would otherwise do hard-hitting journalism have learned to avoid it because it won't get printed. One of the points made by a generation X guy in the audience is that he gets his news from the Daily Show because it is willing to actually present controversy.
All of this makes me dour at my own generation, for casting me in such a negative light, and dour at the Boomer generation, for not being sufficiently aware of the situational factors that have led to changes in my generation's reading patterns and then blaming my generation for these developments.
The Star Tribuners talked about a three hour long meeting that they had been forced to sit through on market research. The Star Tribune identified five audience segments, and chose to focus on only a few of them. They figured that they could ignore their core readership, the middle-aged and elderly who get the newspaper daily, because, in the words of a boss at the Strib, "they couldn't beat them off with a stick." They also figured that they could ignore the "elite readership," which they defined as people who got their national news from the New York Times and turned to the Strib for local news, because they were such a small percentage of the readership, about 5%. And instead, they decided to concentrate on attracting the market segment that gets their news from a wide variety of sources, which is disproportionately young people. In particular, they wanted to attract young women.
So they held a bunch of market research sessions on young people, and young women in particular. They discovered as a result that young people want news that is relevant to their life. As a result: the "experience" newspaper, with one parts information that young people will find relevant to their lives to two parts content. However, in the words of one of the reporters, if you are a young person and don't already know where to go in the Twin Cities to get laid, an article on the subject isn't going to help.
The market research also discovered that their favored market niche, young women, want entertainment news, aka news on Britney Spears et al and updates on their favorite television shows. Alas for the Strib and the people who have altered the newspaper to reflect those preferences, if young women want entertainment news, they will most easily satisfy that need by buying magazines and tabloids in the check-out line, not the newspaper. So the Strib is driving away it's core constituency in order to try to appeal to people who probably won't really read it anyway.
One of the themes throughout the presentation was that newspaper editors nationally have learned that presenting controversy will not play well to their corporate owners, so a lot of journalists who would otherwise do hard-hitting journalism have learned to avoid it because it won't get printed. One of the points made by a generation X guy in the audience is that he gets his news from the Daily Show because it is willing to actually present controversy.
All of this makes me dour at my own generation, for casting me in such a negative light, and dour at the Boomer generation, for not being sufficiently aware of the situational factors that have led to changes in my generation's reading patterns and then blaming my generation for these developments.
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