Troublesome trends

A column from NINA's Fall '08 newsletter by NIU's Jason Akst:

Troublesome trends
land close to home

I dance maniacally when the checkbook balances, so it’s troublesome when somebody like me sounds an alarm on news numbers.

We already know most measures of the print news business paint a gloomy picture, but a new national study (while surely confirming the gloom) also indicates opportunity.

According to "Audience Segments in a Changing News Environment," released by The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on Aug. 18, print newspaper readership is hemorrhaging.

"This year for the first time in roughly 15 years of asking the question, fewer than half of all Americans report reading a daily newspaper on a regular basis. Only 46% say they read the paper regularly - this number is down from 52% in 2006 and was as high as 71% in 1992," the report said, adding that the readership decline between 2006 and 2008 happened across all demographic strata.

The report emphasizes that age continues to correlate strongly with newspaper readership: young people are much less likely to read a daily newspaper. Only 15 percent of people under 25 read a newspaper "yesterday." In the 25-34 age group, 24 percent read a newspaper yesterday, the report said.

However, online newspaper audiences have grown modestly since 2006. "About 13 percent of survey respondents said they read the Web version of a newspaper yesterday, or both the print and online versions, up from 9% two years ago," the report said. "The increase has not made up for the steep loss in print readership (from 34% to 25%)."

The "ah hah!" datum: "Still, online newspapers are gaining readers, especially among people ages 25 to 34," the report said. "The proportion of this age group reporting it read an online newspaper yesterday has doubled — from 9% in 2006 to 19% in 2008."

This report is new, but the trend data is not. Let’s shorthand, because here’s where the rubber meets the road for NINA and our profession:

• Print is down
• Online is up
• Young people don’t read print, but more are starting to read online versions of newspapers.

So even as we fight today’s fires, it seems clear that in order to have tomorrow, we have to do better about getting and keeping young readers, and delivering news the way they like. I’m sure we all get that, but …

Based on other new numbers with which I’m familiar, NINA member efforts in attracting young readers and improving online content are faltering.

I’m coordinating NINA contest judging and the awards luncheon this year. NINA members submitted 615 contest entries. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but those numbers felt pretty solid to me; however, NINA long-timers say entries are low.

Regardless, it’s the subset of contest entries that worries me. In the two contest categories I hoped EVERYBODY would submit something – "Best Effort to Attract Young Readers" and "Best Web Site" – the numbers are dismal.

The Web site category drew seven entries, and the young reader recruitment category drew eight.

Jason Akst is a journalism instructor at Northern Illinois University. Contact him at jakst@niu.edu.