Weekend Amusement: How (Not) To Save Newspapers

by Betsy Richter on March 20, 2010

in Flotsam

My great experiment subscribing (again) to my local paper isn’t going well, as the piles of unread newspapers in the back of my car and/or in my living room attest. Perhaps they’re just not speaking to my demographic?

Or perhaps it’s because I’m just not there yet…

  • http://twitter.com/pdxjoe Joe Wilson

    Readers in my little town don't start reading newspapers until they put roots down.

    Once the kids is born. Once they start paying property taxes. Once they send their kids to public school. Once they start caring about local politics, they subscribe to the newspaper in paper or electronic form.

    My readers range from 35 to death usually. 20-somethings won't take the time to read the local weekly community paper and that's nothing new. It's totally OK. They also don't have the spending power that the older readers have, so the ads are less effective for advertisers. The odd truth is that nothing has really changed in that regard in the last 50 years. Sooner or later, most people who live in small towns want the journalism and information that their local small town paper offers. I have no idea what the metros like the Oregonian are going through and I'd rather not know. There's a reason I never worked for them. ;)

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