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Young ReadersSolving Some Mysteries About the Habits of the YoungThe keys to turning young adults into newsreaders are out there.By John K. HartmanAs newspapers work hard to figureout how to attract youngerreaders, there are some thingswe already know about why they aren’tthere already and what might need tochange to lure them in. A lot of studiesoffer guidance and, though the newsmight seem disheartening at firstglance, there are answers to be found.Memos to the NewspaperIndustryThe numbers are bad and gettingworse. Daily newspaper readershipamong 18- to 29-year-olds slipped to16 percent in 2000, according to asurvey commissioned by American JournalismReview (AJR). This percentagewas a new low, and the trend lineheads to single digits by the end of thedecade. The number had been in the20-25 percent range a decade before.By contrast, the AJR survey showedthat daily readership among 30- to 59-year-olds was 42 percent and, among60 years and older, it was 69 percent.Judging from students in my journalismclasses at Central Michigan University,readership by young adults maybe below 16 percent already. Most ofthem don’t read a daily newspaper. Imust order them to read one and testthem on it and then they might take alook at a newspaper Web site just longenough to do a report or pass a quiz. Inmy advertising classes a decade ago,when I began offering my students adiscount subscription to The Wall StreetJournal, about 10 percent of them subscribed.Over the years, the numberdeclined despite my impassioned pleathat reading the business daily is goodfor future advertising professionals. Inthe spring 2002 semester, I had onetaker out of 150 students: a nontraditionalstudent, around age 30. In 2003I quit offering the discount subscription.It was a hopeless cause.Young adults hurry through yourproduct. On the isolated occasionswhen young adults do read newspapers,they spend about the time it takesto listen to two songs on the radio orthe CD player. According to a 2002study by The Pew Research Center forthe People and the Press, 18- to 24-year-olds averaged nine minutes readingnewspapers out of the 48 theyspent each day in “newsgathering.” The25- to 29-year-olds and 30- to 34-yearoldsboth spent 11 minutes with newspapers.The number went up to 16minutes for those between the ages of35 and 49, 21 minutes for those ages 50to 64, and 33 minutes for the over-65crowd.The young will not age gracefully.Publishers used to cling to thenotion that people acquired the newspaperhabit as they got older: Just wait,they’d say, for the kids to grow up. Nottrue. Researcher John Bartolomeowrote that a generation’s newspaperconsumption habits are established atage 30 and that the younger generationreads less. In other words, a decadefrom now 16 percent of people in their30’s will be newspaper readers everyday. Two decades from now, the percentageof newspaper readers in their40’s might be counted in single digits.The best effort to address the declinecame from Gannett editors, whoput together the X Manual in 2001. It isa 300-page compendium of how todraw young adults into the newspaper.[See Jennifer Carroll’s story aboutGannett’s efforts to attract youngerreaders on page 32.] Among its suggestions:Beef up front page design andentertainment guides; increase businesscoverage; try new sections; boostoutdoor coverage; improve Web sites,and promote more. Suggested areasfor greater coverage included local,world and national news, positive happeningsin the community, education,environment, things to do, health andfitness, families and parenting. Gannettrecently announced its “real life, realnews” initiative, and this bears watchingas well.The young love the Web. Two Californianewspaper industry groups commissioneda survey by MTV Networksthat showed a big gap between whatteenagers and young adults looked forfrom newspapers and what newspapersgave them. The survey found that14- to 24-year-olds wanted, first andforemost, news about music, then localnews. Projecting a culture of diversityis important to the young, the surveyfound, along with more color,pictures and entertainment news. Inkrubbing off on hands and clothes was aturn-off. “Minimize the old, white dudeson the front page,” MTV research executiveBetsy Frank said. The youngconsidered newspapers “important,but just don’t read them.” Frank saidthe development of Web sites was themost important thing newspaperscould do to reach out to the young.A survey done in 2000 by the RoundTable Group echoed the importance ofWeb sites. It found that 18- to 24-yearoldspreferred getting their news onlinerather than in print. Two-thirds likedthe Internet for gathering information,and three-fifths said the Internet offeredbetter information than print.Another study found that young peopleturned to the content-specific sites onthe Web, such as those devoted tosports, music, fashion or dating. Newsorientedsites operated by newspaperswere at a disadvantage.Yet general interest Web sites (socalledentry portals) such as Yahoo,AOL and MSN are thriving by providingaccess points to what the young adultsare interested in. They establish brandloyalty that tethers young adults to the14 Nieman Reports / Winter 2003