The newspaper's death explained

Slate's Jack Shafer tries to explain why newspapers are now pushing the "panic button," as readership numbers are dwindling. He writes:

A good three decades before the newspaper industry began blaming its declining fortunes on the Web, the iPod, and game machines, it knew it was in huge trouble. In the mid-1970s, two of its trade associations (which have since merged)—the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the Newspaper Advertising Bureau—sought to diagnose the causes of tumbling newspaper readership since the mid-1960s and recommend remedies.

But towards the end, he explains that the appetite for news has not really gone down. Generally, it is the behavior of readers that has changed a lot with the introduction of the Web, iPod and game machines, as he puts it. He goes on to quote Preserving the Press, which offers some solution to newspapers.

The solutions proposed by Preserving the Press and Shaw's article read like the standard prescriptions written today: Make an attempt to "reconnect" with readers, who feel alienated from newspapers. Make coverage more local. Hook kids when they're young. Let readers "sound off" about issues on special pages of the paper. Connect with and hire minorities. Expand the weather report. Introduce or expand op-ed pages. Spice up the design and print more color. Run more lifestyle, consumer, and personal-finance articles. Chase potential readers—and advertisers—into the deep suburbs.

Read more of this article here.

College kids going online for campus news

I know this is beyond the 300-word requirement for this week, but I wish to highlight this study I picked up from Poynter Institute.

Baltimore Sun's Nick Madigan wrote that College campus papers are becoming popular despite the dwindling newspaper readership. However, there is a growing number of students going online for news. Excerpt:

At the same time, college students are still reading the papers' print editions. A Student Monitor study says 76 percent of college students surveyed during the spring semester this year read one out of the previous five print editions of their campus paper. That number has remained roughly consistent for almost two decades, never dropping below the high 60s, said Eric Weil, managing partner of Student Monitor, which twice a year surveys 1,200 full-time students on 100 four-year campuses.

The difference now, he said, is that 38 percent of students regularly read an online edition of their campus paper, and they spend an average of 19 minutes doing so, Weil said.