Lessons From the Sports Dailies

The leading newspapers for young men under 30 in three of the largest Latin America markets are sports dailies. Not surprising, but the attraction goes beyond sports, says Mr Cases.

He presented case studies of Olé in Argentina, Lance! in Brazil and Record in Mexico, which primarily focus on football.

The attraction, says Mr Cases, "is not so much about football, but what lies beneath. The colour, the passion is much more substance to them than the sport."

But there are other reasons these newspapers are attractive to their readers, and these have implications for any newspaper that wants to attract this audience. Language, for example -- daring, with a lot of humor.

Format, with strong, robust design. And editing -- it is a matter of understanding the reader.

"Press for young people, must have young journalists. That’s not really so, but the newsroom must be familiar with the reader, must live with the reader. They need to understand the reader and what he is talking about."

Using the Newspaper to Educate Adults

Children who drop out of school and return as young adults face many difficulties, including the problem of finding educational materials that appeal to them and are helpful.

"The textbooks designed for primary and secondary school don’t fit their needs," said Ms Morduchowicz. "They’ve been out in the world, they need to find a job. Now they’re back in school as an adult."

To reach this group, Ms Morduchowicz has written "Newspapers and Adult Life" for the World Association of Newspapers. It is a workbook for adult students with basic reading skills that uses newspapers as the "textbook".

The workbook teaches users how to read a newspaper, how to use it as a source of information, and how to use it for entertainment and diversion.

WAN is seeking comments and suggestions on the workbook, which is in the draft stages. For a copy, contact Aralynn McMane, WAN Director of Education and Development, amcmane@wan.asso.fr.

What do teen-agers want?

Several Gannett newspapers have incorporated "young think" into all aspects of coverage. "That means including young adults as regular sources, integrating content for and about teens and your adults in all sections and beyond," says Ms Carroll.

But before you can create and integrate such content, you have to know what young people want. Gannett found out by gathering information from web sites used by high schoolers, from blogs and interactive web sites, from free weekly newspapers and from focus groups to understand what young people are thinking.

Here is what Gannet discovered about young readers: they are not easily sterotyped; they are avid news consumers; they want free information and convenient distribution; they value leisure and social time; they view advertising as content.

Using examples from half a dozen Gannett dailies, Ms Carroll explained how Gannett leveraged this information into new content for young people. One example: "week in and week out, photo galleries from events where young people gather is the number one item in online traffic reports on many sites, " said Ms Carroll.

Breaking Out of the Ghetto

Multi-cultural Luxembourg might be a small country, but it is home to six daily and five weekly newspapers. Competition for readers is fierce, and newspapers must innovate to increase circulation.

Editpress, which publishes two of the dailies and two of the weeklies, decided several years ago to go after new younger readers. It launched special youth pages, supplement and other specialised products -- and they didn’t work.

"We soon realised that we were ’ghettoising’ young people, providing them with poor news," says Ms Fonck. "The few readers we won from such actions were disloyal readers who turned away as soon as they didn’t find the news they were looking for."

Ms Fonck described a new strategy, implemented in 2004, in which young reader interests were incorporated into every section of the paper. Since then, the percentage of readers between the ages of 15 and 24 has risen three percentage points.

"Youngsters are more interested in serious matters than we tend to think," she says. "They ask themselves a lot of questions: how can I improve my quality of life? What about my education? How do I plan my professional future? How to I conciliate my private life with my professional life? These are only a few examples of what really interests young people. Shouldn’t these issues have their place in the papers?"

A Reading Life-Cycle

Newspapers are among the media most used by young readers in Argentina, yet their importance is underestimated when compared with other media, says Mr Kirschbaum.

"In the universe of young people, there is the feeling that they don’t read. This is false. They don’t read as we did when we were young, but they do read."

But what they don’t do is develop loyalty to newspapers.

"They didn’t grow up with newspapers. This means that young readers act indifferently when it comes to reading development. They are much better trained at using other platforms and not the paper platform."

At Clarin, the young reader strategy involves developing this reading habit, as early as four-years-old with a pre-school magazine. From there, the newspaper have developed a wide variety of products, both within the paper and outside, to entice young people to develop the reading habit. And not just young people -- the Clarin strategy is a life-cycle strategy, designed to appeal to readers throughout their lives, says Mr Kirschbaum.

No More Excuses

It is time for newspaper men and women to stop being defensive.

"No more excuses about the vehicle we have chosen to make our living," says Mr Rech. "The problem is not the newspaper as a medium -- it’s in our heads."

"We need to constantly innovate and at times produce a true revolution in our products rather than be content with mere survival," says Mr Rech.

Forty-two percent of Zero Hora’s readers are 10- to 29-years old. Mr Rech described dozens of strategies and products that helped produce this result for the southern Brazilian daily. For example:

One-third of the 190-strong newsroom is under 30 years old. And 19 journalism students fill support functions in the newsroom. "They are a permanent focus group who challenges us. They are one of the key factors for spreading the young spirit in the newsroom."

Thirty Great Ideas in Thirty Minutes

It was a 30-minute whirlwind tour of the globe as the three presenters took the conference through the traditional end-of-session presentation of 30 quick and easy young reader ideas from every continent. Among them:
 The "Adopt a Student" programme of the New Straits Times in Malaysia in which indivuals and companies were invited to sponsor copies to schools, resulting in 8,000 additional subscriptions.
 The KidsInk supplement to Cox Ohio Publishing newspapers in the United States which used last year’s elections to promote newspapers as a source of information. Sales increased from 44,000 to 72,000 per week.
 The Wild Mouse web initiative of La Prensa Grafica in El Salvador which provides information about nightlife, music, sports and daily news to 15- to 25-year olds and resulted in a 10 percent increase in website visitors.
 Spectator for Schools in the United Kingdom, launched just one month ago, in which readers are encouraged to fund subscriptions for schools. Four hundred have been funded so far.