The unwanted and the unwanting: News and young adults
On Tuesday night I went to a seminar where a bunch of seamheads lamented the rise of professional football. No, seriously, I went to a panel discussion organized by MassINC that tackled the issue of young adults and their seeming aversion to news in general and traditional news media in particular and what news organizations can do to connect with young adults.
The panelists were Assistant Professor Dan Kennedy (Northeastern University), Deputy Editor on Boston Globe’s editorial board Dante Ramos, WBUR reporter Bianca Vasquez-Toness, and Universal Hub’s Adam Gaffin. Adam Reilly, writer and media critic at The Boston Phoenix, did a solid job as moderator.
Kennedy mentioned a stunning anecdote in his opening remarks when he noted that many of the students in his class - which he said is the first class in journalism for NU students who major in that discipline - haven’t read newspapers on daily basis before taking his class. I’d say it’s pretty bad if not even aspiring journalists can be bothered to read newspapers.
Later in the evening Kennedy noted that the thinking about the future of news media has progressed from visions of “The Daily Me” (news personalized to suit me and possibly only me) to what Reilly suggested might be called “The Daily Us,” news that fit a specific social network, the members of which can amuse themselves by collectively laugh at or agree with the news they get.
There was in general quite a bit of talk surrounding how to distribute news via social media. A woman in the audience argued that teenagers get most of their news from friends via email, Instant Messaging, text messaging and what not. In Web 1.0 jargon one could perhaps say that news are viral but not sticky for teenagers and - presumably - young adults (here defined as people aged 18-30). Not being the most charitable person in the world I can’t help but wonder what passes for news for those kids? I’m guessing the latest employment situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t clog too many Trilian windows.
Ramos somewhat self-servingly but certainly not without logic suggested that today’s extreme fragmentation of media eventually will be reversed which would once again allow for healthy and stable news operations (I’m paraphrasing and extending his thesis a bit. Ramos obviously did not suggest that the Globe isn’t a healthy news operations but newspapers in particular are indisputably suffering from audience fragmentation and shifting advertising spending patterns). I think he’s right. Economies of scale and division of labor just make a lot of sense and I think that reality eventually will reassert itself. It follows that the aggregation will happen along lines that make economic sense. I have no idea what those lines are but they are out there.
One can’t have a discussion about the future of media without running into the question of whether - or to what extent - amateur journalists (or citizen journalists, as they are perhaps more often called) can replace professional journalists. Gaffin, old newshound that he is, pointed out that citizen journalists can contribute greatly with observational journalism such as reports, photographs or video from accidents or other occurrences while it takes professional journalists to undertake investigative journalism like finding out why an accident, like the one in Danvers last year, took place. Kennedy argued that new media bloggers soon may very well develop and break substantial works of journalism, although it would be bloggers who have created a functional financial foundation.
One should keep in mind that there was a good deal of citizen-journalism excitement in the camcorder community in the wake of the Rodney King tape in the early and mid-1990’s, but I think the reality is that citizen-journalism camcording today is mostly focused on more or less stalking high-profile celebrities, in particular nut jobs like Britney Spears. As YouTube demonstrates, much has been captured by cameras since 1991, but not a whole lot that’s necessarily news in any meaningful way.
It was repeatedly asserted by various audience members that there is a widespread general discontent with newsmedia. I think that’s bunk. I think there’s mostly wide spread disinterest, some of which is conveniently presented as disillusionment. I just don’t believe that many people say to themselves that Washington Post is so crappy these days that they’re just going to watch “Keeping Up With the Kardashian’s’” instead. Could news media do something bout the way they select and package news in order to win back the young masses? Perhaps, but how far can they go in that direction without losing current readers/listeners/viewers?
It could be that what we’re seeing now is the Mittelstand of the newspaper industry that is getting squeezed the hardest - primarily regional daily newspapers - while a small handful of big-shot newspapers as well as a huge number of small local newspaper do OK or even prosper.
[If one were to look at the newspaper industry through the prism of the so-called Four P marketing mix one could say that a lot of consumers enjoy getting the content (Product) through the web (Place) at no cost (Price) - and then carp about the shortcomings of what they derisively call Mainstream Media or corporate media.]
The discussion sort of petered out in an inconclusive way which made perfectly good sense: Both producers and consumers of news will have to find their way as they move forward in a for now expanding and fragmenting and financially changing media market.
