Newspapers Publish Less in Print; Focus on Web to Attract Young Readers

Abstract

The future of community newspapers may lie in the hands of its youngest community members. To foster a new generation of readers, newspapers large and small have turned toward projects that lend a voice to children and teenagers in their circulation areas. Academic-led partnerships also have helped to fill gaps in covering a community's youngest members when the local newspaper fails to do so.Durham Voice is but one example.1 The hybrid online and print publication, begun by college journalism students and local teens in fall 2009, covers a sub-community, teenagers, within a distinct community, Northeast Central Durham, within a larger city-Durham, N.C., with an estimated population in 2008 of 223, 284, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.Whether publishing Little League photos or names in the honor rolls of local schools, coverage of youth culture has long been a staple of community newspapers in America. But only a small number of newspapers have shifted the focus from covering stories about youth to engaging local youngsters to provide coverage by and for youth, as Durham Voice does.2 Some examples of newspaper youth sections include the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette's Flipside, which has drawn readers, if not advertisers, to its pages for almost two decades; the youth section of The Voice in Springfield, Mass.; Page One in Warren, Ohio and TX in Ogden, Utah.3 Attracting young readers is just as much of a top priority of weekly community newspapers as it is to daily newspapers.4When it comes to the future of community newspapers, today's youth will inevitably play a vital role as they are the readers of the future. Less is known, however, about what new efforts to attract youth should entail and where they should take place. This study focuses on what newspapers are doing about the continual declines in youth readership. Does the industry still try to obtain young readers for the core print product, or do they focus efforts on attracting youth to their Internet sites?5 Those are important questions for community newspapers to grapple with as online communication becomes more ubiquitous. Newspapers' strategies for creating content for a niche community of readers-i.e. local children and teenagers- can be viewed as community journalism practice in action.6Literature ReviewRecognizing that young people were turning away from daily newspapers, in the late 1980s and early 1990s many newspapers created separate pages with content designed to appeal to children or teenagers.7 That strategic response served several purposes, including sowing seeds for future readers and creating a niche for potential advertisers. Youth sections, however, have been cut during tough financial times.8 Without content that appeals to teens, most of whom are not daily newspaper readers,9 they will turn elsewhere, and youth interest in newspapers has waned significantly over the past decades.10 Still, teenagers have what Lauterer describes as a sense of community. They have distinct communities (i.e. high school identities) within their demographic (youth) and within their community (hometown).11 Newspaper industry associations recognize that advertiser interest in young people offers an opportunity for newspapers to help meet that demand. Many professional newspapers in the 1990s adopted a youthcontent model in which newspaper staff members directed and edited content created mostly by high school students. 12 Newspapers that cover niche communities, such as youth-oriented sections, can attract advertisers aimed at those audiences.13The number of student efforts at professional newspapers appears to be declining,14 with the most recent research indicating 217 U.S. newspapers have teen publications, down from 370 just three years earlier.15 Resource limitations are often cited for the suspension of youth sections, even critically acclaimed and award-winning sections that were successful at attracting readers. A lack of resources has also been cited by managers for not having a well-defined youth strategy. …