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onto one kind of phone, it should
immediately expand its goal to aim
toward getting the newspaper’s content
onto every phone made after a certain
year. As new products—hardware
and online programs—emerge, those
in the newsroom who are their early
adopters will be the ones well suited
to lead the brainstorming of how to
get the newspaper onto these new
technologies.
I don’t shudder at newspapers’
Internet-induced downfall. Instead,
I see it as a challenge. Every time
someone tells me that wanting to get a
job in a newspaper is a dumb idea, it
motivates me even more to prove them
wrong. And I believe there are plenty
of young people like me who want to
be part of the reason that newspapers
will survive. We’re ready to take what
we know from our use of the Internet
and apply it to whatever we can do
to keep newspapers afloat.
Youthful Perspectives
When I toss my mortarboard into
the air on May 17th, consider it my way
of saying, “challenge accepted.” �
Luke Morris is a senior at the University
of Kansas and copy chief of The
University Daily Kansan. He blogs
about his rookie view of the newspaper
industry at http://breakingintojournalism.blogspot.com.
Journalism and Citizenship: Making the Connection
‘Not only do citizens benefit from good journalism, but also journalism gets a
boost from having engaged, news-hungry citizens.’
BY DAVID T.Z. MINDICH
My book, “Tuned Out: Why
Americans Under 40 Don’t
Follow the News,” published
in 2004, opened with a depressing fact:
More people watched the 2003 finale
of “American Idol” (38 million) than
the second Bush vs. Gore presidential
debate (37.6 million). Among young
viewers, these numbers were even
more lopsided. In all, 24 million votes
were cast, mainly by young people, for
“American Idol” contestants Ruben
Studdard and Clay Aiken. Even though
we know that some of these votes were
by minors (and they were allowed to
vote multiple times), it is sobering to
remember that fewer than six million
(22 percent) of 18- to 24-year-olds
voted in the 2006 midterm elections;
this means that for every one of these
young people who voted, four of their
peers stayed home.
Fast forward to the 2008 elections,
in which 66 million watched the second
presidential debate, and even more
watched the vice presidential one.
Millions of young people participated
in the primaries and caucuses—in a
greater percentage than seen in decades.
In the general election, 18 to
1 http://people-press.org/report/444/news-media
29-year-olds increased their share of
the electorate from 17 percent in the
past two elections to 18 percent this
year. Still, little more than half of all
eligible voters under 30 cast ballots
in the general election, according to
an early estimate by the Center for
Information and Research on Civic
Learning and Engagement.
But does this modest upsurge in
voting among young people mean that
the 30-year widening knowledge gap
between them and their elders is being
narrowed? Some long-term trends are
discouraging:
• Only around 20 percent of today’s
20-somethings and 30 percent of
30-somethings read a newspaper every
day, way down from decades past.
Why should we care? Because studies
show that the news habit needs to be
cultivated early. The 30-something
non-news reader is likely to one day
become a 50-something non-news
reader.
• Television news viewership is no
better: The median viewer age of TV
news has risen from 50 to around 60
in the past decade. Although CNN,
“The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,”
and “The Colbert Report” have seen
recent upticks in young viewers,
long-term trends for television news
watching are down.
• An August 2008 report 1 by the Pew
Nieman Reports | Winter 2008 23