STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — There’s no clearcut solution.
According to Andrew Bergstein, the associate director for the Center for Sports Business and Research at Penn State, there isn’t one way to go about increasing newspaper readership among America’s youth.
College students simply don’t have the attention span to sit and read a newspaper, especially with all the other media outlets literally at their fingertips.
“I’m going up against the same thing in the classroom as all of you are,” Bergstein said during a presentation at the APSE Mid-Atlantic Regional meeting. “I’m competing with March Madness, texting, smart phones, the Internet, all kinds of things while I’m trying to teach, just like newspapers are competing with blogs, Internet and Twitter.”
Unfortunately, Bergstein doesn’t have an answer for combating all the distractions facing potential young readers today, but he did offer a glimpse of hope.
Though Bergstein sees more and more students with laptops on their desk during his lectures – likely surfing the Internet or talking to their friends – he said those same students are still absorbing the material he is teaching.
Similarly, those students might not be picking up the newspaper every morning, but that doesn’t mean they are unattainable to mass media outlets.
One of the keys for media outlets, regardless of whether students are living close to home or away at college, is making sure to have a strong Internet presence.
“Basically, if you don’t have a site, you’re out of sight,” Bergstein said.
While the web presence is essential for reaching young readers, Bergstein added that other techniques are dependent on the type of student a publication is trying to reach.
He points out there are different types of students, ranging from those who grow up in an area and ultimately stay there for college and work, to those who leave home for school and ultimately settle somewhere else.
There’s also the “rubber bands” in the middle of that spectrum, who venture away to school and test the waters, only to snap back home afterward.
No matter what, though, it comes back to the Internet.
“If they can get your copy on digital, they can stay in touch with their hometown through your publication when they’re gone,” Bergstein said, “and then they’re more likely to pick it up when they get back home.”
While building a solid presence on the Internet and making your publication accessible on smart phones is a step in the right direction, Bergstein didn’t mince words about the state of the industry.
He used to enter his classroom and see newspapers scattered about the desks and floor, but those have been replaced by students texting on their phones while sitting in front of their laptops and listening to their headphones, which are connected to the Ipods in their pockets. He mentioned a Penn State program in which students can get free newspapers and yet he still sees few of them taking advantage of them.
“In a way, this is a very attractive demographic for editors,” Bergstein said, “but reaching them is your equivalent to my dealing with March Madness.”
Paul Casella is a senior journalism student at Penn State and is the sports chief of the Daily Collegian. He has won first place in the Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program for undergraduates. He will work this summer for MLB.com, providing coverage of the Chicago White Sox.
