Future of newspapers will be online
The Washington Post ran an article today citing two studies, one from the Newspaper Association of America and the other from Scarborough Research, that both come to the same conclusion: newspapers have to embrace the online world if they want to attract and retain future readers.
posted by Amy at 9:48 PM
5 Comments:
Yeah, darn those crazy young people that want everything online... and in an RSS feed!
Demographically, I don't qualify as a "young reader," but it's become rare for me to read a site that doesn't have a feed.
I'm a bit of a traditionalist as well though. I subscribe to a daily paper and confess that I will sit down and read it.
My parents read a daily paper and I think because of that, I got into the routine of doing it as well. While I get a fair share of my news online, I can't imagine not reading the paper every day.
Do I qualify as a young reader anymore? I just turned 26 - that kicks me out of that elusive 18-25 age bracket...
My family actually had 2 daily newspaper subscriptions when I was growing up - city one and local one. I was actually a newspaper subscriber when I was first living on my own... but I found I rarely read it because I was short on time and didn't have a NEED for it since I got all the news I cared about from elsewhere.
I've had difficulty finding a good (free) local news RSS feed. If my local paper offered more local content (to non-subscribers) I would certainly be interested.
I actually feel rather passionate about this issue... I feel like today's newspapers just don't get it (well, none around here anyway) and no one is serving my needs.
Newspapers need to be ONLINE with mostly free content (at least the most recent articles)... and they need to focus their effort on LOCAL stories (because I don't need my local paper for national news).
Ok, I'm done. :)
*stepping down off her soapbox*
You make some great points Cindy.
I agree that newspapers need to stop trying to figure out how to make the print product better because (and I don't mean to be a downer), young people are simply not going to subscribe and/or read the print product when they are getting what they need from other sources.
Instead, papers need to accept this fact and give readers the news they want in the format they want, for example, the ability to create a customized paper with only the news you're interested in reading. Another thing I'd like to see are stories in the print version with significant online components, such as video interviews and interactive timelines.
Yes, yes, and yes! Unfortunately, I think I'll need to wait for a bunch of newspaper execs to retire before I'll see those things happen.
In the meantime, I'm going to continue to explore my other options for news. If you have any good suggestions for feeds, please email me.
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