By: Ben Fenton

Ben Fenton — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:06:06 +0000

Interesting thoughts from a man who should know. But he should also know that young people have never read newspapers, especially not regionals. Since the advent first of radio and later television, people have always evolved into newspaper readership as they grew older.
I have always believed, and bored people rigid on the subject when I worked at the Telegraph, that anyone working for a serious newspaper and trying to attract young readers was wasting their time because they will never share the viewpoints of more than one or perhaps two age cohorts.
The key question is surely whether people will continue to evolve or not. I suspect this is not an easy one to call. My 15-year-old son reads a paper every day – Metro – on the train, and is at least familiar with the geography of newspapers. It would not be wholly surprising if this habit sticks with him and when he is more affluent he makes more informed choices to take up a differentiated and more challenging product. And anyone who works for a newspaper should know that there are many more reasons for buying a paper than the news, or the information. The key to maintaining happiness among the readership at the Telegraph, for instance, was not mucking around with the crossword.
To adapt Churchill, I a person does not get their news from Facebook when they are 20 they have no soul; if they do not get their news from a more reliable source by the age of 40, they will have no nous.

Comments on: Regional Editor: Google’s Not The Problem, Our Readers Are Dying

By: Ben Fenton