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Young Readersers from a very shaky perch.The stars of RedEye’s universe tendto be younger and more diverse—areflection of our readers. In RedEye’sworld, Jam Master Jay’s passing trumpsBob Hope’s. John Ritter vs. JohnnyCash? That turned out to be a decisionwe didn’t have to make because thetwo celebrities died on a day outside ofour weekday publishing cycle. If wehad to make the call, we’d have playedthe sitcom star over the music icon.Why? Ritter’s death was more unexpected,he was the star of a currentshow, and he meant more to a greaternumber of our readers, many of whomonly knew Cash from his recent remakeof a Nine Inch Nails song.Challenges Ahead for RedEyeOur approach to RedEye put off a lot ofmedia critics, who quickly dismissedRedEye and said it was just “dumbingdown” the news. Theyprobably said much thesame about USA Today orCNN’s Headline News, twoother vehicles—and successfulones, I might add—for delivering informationto people in a differentformat. It’s nice to knowthat as times and habitschange at a frenetic rate,we can count on mediacriticism to be a dependablesource of inertia andtraditionalism.The critics also chidedRedEye for recycling Tribunecontent. Maybe theywould have been happierif we used The AssociatedPress like most other paperslike ours do. In anycase, RedEye’s reliance onnonunique content hasdiminished as we’vegrown. No, we don’t havea Baghdad bureau yet, butwe are producing a substantialamount of originallocal stories and features.RedEye hasthree—soon to be four—reporters covering the city,not to mention its own cadre of columnists,a fashion writer, a TV critic, and amovie critic who goes by the name ofMr. Cranky.Still, it remains to be seen whetherRedEye or any of its numerous imitatorswill win this campaign. Perhapsyoung people who have never beenexposed to a daily newspaper habitwithin their households will never developone on their own. I asked ayoung journalism student if she feltnewspapers were an essential part ofher daily routine, and her answer wastelling. “I feel the need for information,”she said, “but I don’t feel theneed for a newspaper.”The biggest challenge remains gettingpeople to simply make the effortto pick up a paper—any paper. When aRedEye lands in their lap, they’re happyenough to read it, even downright enthusiasticabout it, but if they have tocross the street to find an honor boxRedEye finds most of its readers on the subway.and then fumble for a quarter—well,that’s too much trouble, they tell us.They want the news, but they want itwhen they want it, where they want it,and how they want it.RedEye wrestled with this dilemmawhen it came to defining what role ourWeb site (www.redeyechicago.com)should play. We knew young peoplehad an affinity for electronically deliverednews, but if we followed the dominantnewspaper model and put all ofour content online, how would thathelp us build a daily newspaper habit?We chose to make the site a “teaser,”with just a reproduction of the day’scover and a few summaries of our beststories. This might not be the ultimatesolution, but giving away valuable contentfor free in one format and askingpeople to pay for it in another didn’tseem like a viable long-term strategy,either. Most newspapers, the Tribuneincluded, have adopted a free accessmodel for reading thenewspaper on its Web site,but if news organizationswere to begin anew—aswe were doing—I’m notsure they would make thesame choice now that theydid then.This nexus of news delivery,in my opinion, iswhere the battle for futurereaders will be won or lost.Perhaps the newspapersubscription of the futureis a bundled product:print, Internet and customizede-mail, to fit the changingneeds and preferencesof this new breed of consumer.This notion of “mynews, my way” is whyRedEye initiated a homedelivery program last summer,even though it wasn’tpart of the original businessplan. We’d thoughtof street sales, but whensome readers told us “justput it on our doorstep,and I’ll write you a check.Don’t ask me to make adecision everyday. Let memake one decision and be28 Nieman Reports / Winter 2003