Friday morning, April 19

Timothy J. Gallagher, Ventura (Calif.) County Star, presiding: The good news in today’s report is that those Americans age 16 years old to 29 years old can become good loyal newspaper readers if we newspaper editors do our jobs. That is, if we change our newspapers to meet the interests of a new generation of readers. To assist us in that task, I would like to introduce Virginia Dodge Fielder, a familiar face to many in this audience. Jenny is vice president for research at Knight-Ridder. She has been a reporter and a researcher in the newspaper industry for many years. Jenny’s calm persistence, clear-headed thinking, and taskmastering qualities have been invaluable. Without Jenny Fielder, we would not have this report to present to you today.

I would also like to introduce Sean Keller of Yankelovich Partners. ASNE contracted with Yankelovich, which already had undertaken a massive national study of the behaviors of Generation Xers. Yankelovich told us what they knew about this generation and then agreed to take on a study of Xers’ views about newspapers. Sean’s unflinching eye has been invaluable to the development of the study of their newspaper habits. Sean and Jenny will present the bulk of today’s report, and I’ll talk about some of the implications. When we’re done, we’ll hear from Adam Platt. Adam spent 1995 engaged in a study of the changing media use patterns of Generation X readers and young adults for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He has spent the bulk of his journalism career as a media critic and reporter for alternative weeklies and magazines. In addition to consulting, Adam currently produces media criticism for PBS in Minneapolis and edits a magazine based there.

Sean, tell us about this generation.

Remarks by Sean F. Keller

Hello. Let me first remove any lingering doubts. I am, in fact, an Xer. For the record, I am 28 years old. I have never snowboarded, but I do Roller Blade. I don’t watch MTV, but I do listen to alternative music. And, by the way, I do read newspapers.

The presentation this morning is based on data collected from the Yankelovich Monitor from over 4,000 Generation Xers. The Monitor is a yearly tracking study that measures the hopes, the dreams, the goals, the values and aspirations of Americans of all ages. Mind you, I had no in-going assumptions about what I would or would not find. I have tried to let the data speak for themselves. While I am an Xer, I am first and foremost a researcher.

Just who is this generation? Gen Xers represent approximately 25 percent of the adult U.S. population. Beyond that, things about them get a little less clear. And just why is that? Because Generation Xers examine parts of their world and their life within it through fundamentally different sets of values and attitudes.

To understand what’s going on with Xers, we have to go back to the Baby Boom generation, those adults born between the years of 1946 and 1964. The realities of life were very different for Boomers than for Xers. Boomers came of age in an era of assumed economic prosperity. It was this notion of assumed wealth that allowed Boomers to spend their time focusing on self and on social issues. Please do not take this to mean that Boomers had it easy and Xers have it tough. It’s just not that simple. What shaped each generation was fundamentally different. For most Boomers, father worked and mother stayed home with the kids. For many Xers, both mom and dad worked, and that really assumes that there were both a mom and a dad in the family. Cultural icons and outlets have changed. MTV replaced “American Bandstand,” the “Simpsons” stepped in for the “Flintstones,” safe sex replaced free love, and Howard Stern reigns where once it was Wolfman Jack. Perhaps due to some of these differences between Xers and Boomers, my generation has been saddled with very derogatory labels, and you know them all — slackers, unmotivated, uninspired, despondent, aimless and lost.

But the view from the world of Generation X couldn’t be any more different. Contrary to popular opinion, Gen Xers are filled with a sense of purpose and capability. They are a group driven to succeed and confident in their own abilities, but this group has realized, and at a much younger age, that many of life’s previous guarantees are no longer true. Remember my saying how Boomers grew up in a time of assumed prosperity? Just how many in this room feel that that is true today? Do you remember the gas lines in the 1970s? That was my childhood. Life today has its limits — very hard and very tangible ones. Gen Xers have very realistic expectations for this day and time. They have come to accept that nothing comes easily. To achieve their hopes and dreams, they will have to work extremely hard, and they are ready to do just that. Xers cannot take for granted that they’ll be any better off tomorrow than they are today. They cannot even assume that they will do any better than their parents did. As a consequence, many Xers have lowered expectations about their future.

Does this mean that Xers are just sitting around moping and whining? No, it does not. Xers understand that they will have to work hard to achieve what’s important to them. So where do Xers turn to get the job done? Whom do they rely on in a pinch? It’s the same person that it has always been — themselves. They know that life is not a free ride. Not only will Xers have to work hard to achieve their goals, more than likely they will have only themselves to rely upon. Xers recognize that their own effort and skill are prerequisites to success. Their confidence in institutions has been deteriorating in recent years. And as far as business is concerned, the Xer consensus is that given a chance most businesses will, in fact, take advantage of them.

Other Yankelovich data point to the different role that education plays in the lives of Boomers and Xers. For Boomers, education was always about being a well-rounded individual. For Xers, education is a tool, a means of getting ahead. Gen Xers have already accepted that there is less of a guarantee that they will achieve their goals. So it is not surprising that Xers want to live and experience as much as they can. For this generation, the future is not 40 years from now. The relevant time frame is more likely a week, a month, or, at the most, a year. Planning for a future, which is decades away and may never happen as planned, makes little sense for a generation struggling in the present. Xers want to relax and enjoy life. Because they are more likely to be on the have-not side of the equation, material goods are very important to them. But money is more of a means to an end. It’s something to help Xers get what they want out of life now rather than to tap into something later. It is not being wealthy that is important. What counts is being able to afford novel experiences now, as much and as many as possible. Xers like to do things on the spur of the moment. They just want to have fun, and they want to live life to the fullest. While searching for fun and new experiences has always been associated with youth, it is an aspect of Xer life that they will likely retain in one form or another throughout their lives. What is sometimes misunderstood is that the Xers’ pursuit of fun is not irresponsible or immature. Instead, to the Xer mind-set, fun is the opposite of serious and formal. Xers want to derive some level of fun from everything they do, and even though there are many things they would like to own, they prefer spending money on experiences that will enrich their lives, such as travel, vacations, and good restaurants. This influences the brands they purchase, the media they consume, even their relationship with work, which for many Xers can be summed up in just three words — just pay me.

Four in 10 Xers say they don’t expect pleasure from their work; it’s just what they do to earn a living. Like most Xers today, Americans are searching for the right mental equilibrium. Even more so than Boomers, Xers are actively looking to make life more streamlined and to get things under control. It’s about making strategic decisions and about getting rid of some of the nonessentials in life. Xers ask themselves, what are the things that I care most about and I can control? Let me focus my energy there and make an impact. What are the things that I care more about and cannot control, or don’t have time to control? Can I delegate those things to someone else, so I can find peace and quiet in my own life? So the stress is mounting from all directions: stress about money, Xers have less of it than Boomers do; stress about the future and how to plan for it; and stress about their personal lives, should they get married, should they change jobs? For Gen Xers faced with uncertain futures and important life-stage decisions, seeking mental equilibrium is as important today as the health craze was to the Boomers in the 1980s.

For Gen Xers change is the watch word. This translates into an approach that is activity oriented rather than thought-out. “Just do it,” isn’t all about Nike. For realistic Xers it’s about finding solutions so long as the cost, whether it is measured in dollars, time spent, or by some other definition, isn’t too high. When Xers come across a new brand, a new approach, or a new activity, they would rather just do it than just think about it.

Without a doubt, Xers live by the proliferation of choice. Many are actively looking for new places to go out, new TV shows to watch, and even new places to live and to work. For this generation, lack of choice was never a choice. With all of the options available to them from brands to media to lifestyles, Xers find themselves living in a disposable world — where virtually everything is a commodity that can be bought, sold, traded, or upgraded. One thing that may result from Xers’ quest for new approaches and new solutions is new traditions. Xers realize their approach to life is misunderstood and looked upon with a healthy degree of skepticism. That’s just fine with Gen X. Xers have not gone out of their way to explain or defend what they do and why they do it. But while this means pressing ahead when new solutions are warranted, it also means acknowledging that sometimes Xers need to take lessons from the past. Many are willing to return to traditional standards on parental responsibility, family life, and schools, but returning to traditional sexual and social relations are another matter.

By now you are probably wondering if all Xers are the same? They are not. To shed more light on this diverse generation, Yankelovich Partners conducted a computer analysis that separated Gen Xers into four distinct segments, each of which is distinguished by common attributes, needs and goals. These four Gen X segments — the up-and-comers, the drifters, the playboys, and the bystanders — are discussed in detail in the report.

Generation X has been called the MTV generation with good reason. For these young people television served as baby sitter, entertainer and educator. And in a world punctuated by dual-income households, absentee parents, and working mothers, TV became a form of company as well. Xers were the first generation to be spoon-fed educational programming like “Sesame Street” and “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” So it would be easy to imagine that the lifelong relationship between Xers and their television sets might be the proverbial writing on the wall for other forms of media. This is not true. All media outlets are alive and well and being consumed by members of this generation.

Despite all the talk about this generation of couch potatoes, Gen Xers consume only marginally more television than their Boomer counterparts. On average, Gen Xers spend only one hour more per week in front of the tube than Boomers do. Differences between Generation X and Boomers do appear, however, in the number and the types of programming they consume. True to form, Xers are looking for options, which means cable; for fun, which means sitcoms; and for programming that is more personal like “Cops” rather than impersonal like the network news. Boomer television favorites such as “20/20,” “60 Minutes” and “Dateline” don’t even make the Xer top 10 list. And CNN, the most watched cable channel among Boomers, falls to number six on the Xer list, and for the record, MTV is the number one Xer channel.

Radio is a hot medium for Gen Xers, at least partially because this medium has evolved into an emotional relationship with Gen Xers. It begs a listener to call in to win tickets, voice an opinion, or play a joke on friends. This has special appeal for Gen Xers for whom this type of interactivity is a virtual must-have.

And, yes, Gen Xers do read both magazines and newspapers. Xers are drawn to magazines almost as much as Boomers are: 59 percent of Xers subscribe to one or more magazines, compared to 68 percent of Boomers. One reason for Xers’ interest in magazines is linked to the ability of that industry, like radio, to adapt its medium to their interests. But despite the targeted appeal of such magazines as Details, Young Sisters and Brothers, and Spin, the magazines Generation X most often read regularly are names we all recognize, Sports Illustrated, TV Guide, Readers Digest, People and Cosmopolitan.

There is both good and bad news for newspapers. The good news is that more than 4 in 10 Xers are regular readers, meaning they read the newspaper every day or almost every day. The bad news is that a quarter say they seldom or never read a newspaper. The rest are occasional readers who pick up the paper a few times a week or only on Sundays. Regular, occasional, and infrequent readers of newspapers differ very little in the amount of TV they watch or the radio they listen to. This is not as true for magazines. Good newspaper readers also turn out to be good readers of magazines.

I’m going to turn it over to Jenny Fielder and Tim Gallagher now. They’re going to tell you more about what we learned when we reinterviewed 800 Generation Xers from the Yankelovich Monitor about their newspaper reading habits as well as what a small group of editors said they would do after reading a preview of this report. Jenny? Tim?

Remarks by Virginia Dodge Fielder and Timothy J. Gallagher

Fielder: Thank you Sean. And thanks, Tim, for saying I’ve been in the industry many years. It makes me feel very good to share the platform with my young colleague here. As Sean told you, Generation Xers do read newspapers. In an average week nearly two thirds of these 16- to 29-year-olds read both a weekday and a Sunday newspaper, 15 percent read only on Sunday and another 12 percent only on weekdays. Add these numbers and you have the score. More than 9 of 10 Generation Xers read newspapers. Fewer than 1 in 10 is a hard-core nonreader.

Clearly, the newspaper industry has a great opportunity with Generation X. The true challenge is increasing their reading frequency, something editors have been talking about with Boomers for more than a decade. We do have a longer way to go with Xers than with Boomers, however. While nearly half of Xers who read weekday papers read them four or five days a week, that’s still less than the 60 percent of Boomers reading that often. But Xers spend virtually the same amount of time with a given issue of the weekday paper as Boomers do, about 45 minutes among readers on average. On Sundays there are differences in reading time. Gen Xers spend about 59 minutes with their Sunday paper while Boomers spend 66 minutes, and Boomers are more likely to read the paper every Sunday than Xers are. In the survey we asked Gen Xers who only read the weekday paper why they don’t also read on Sundays. The main reason they said is they get enough information from other sources, particularly television news, and interestingly enough, the weekday paper. They said they don’t read the Sunday paper because they just aren’t around all that much on the weekend. Our interviews with Xers make one thing perfectly clear: Single-copy sales are key to attracting this generation. Fewer than half of Gen X readers get their weekday or Sunday newspaper home delivered. The rest either buy it single copy or pick it up for free, presumably at work during lunch or from friends. This generation, at least so far, is considerably more single-copy driven than Boomers are. Tim, what do we do now?

Gallagher: For starters, let’s change our ideas about where to sell single-copy editions. We need new ways to go after Gen Xers where they live, work, and play. We need to make it easy for music stores to display and sell copies of daily newspapers alongside the magazines and weeklies they routinely make available to their customers. We need to emphasize sports, entertainment, in-depth coverage, useful ads and classifieds on the front page and in our promotions. We need to increase story counts, particularly of stories relevant to Xer life and lifestyle. And we need to promote all this on the radio stations Xers listen to, and be sure your rack cards have an Xer look and feel.

Fielder: Why do Generation Xers read newspapers? Primarily for the same reasons Boomers do — because they want to keep up-to-date on what is happening locally in their communities as well as nationally and internationally. Like Boomers, Xers read because newspapers provide news with depth and detail and news they can believe. But make no mistake, news isn’t the only thing that brings Gen Xers to newspapers. Apart from wanting to know what’s going on in the outside world, Xers are looking for areas relevant to their everyday lives, particularly entertainment, advertising and sports coverage.

Newspapers need to appreciate the drawing power of advertisements for Generation X, particularly women. As a reason for reading, ads rank ahead of such classic newspaper fare as TV coverage and comics. Fewer Xers look to newspapers to help them decide what to believe about important public issues, to decide what to buy, for insight into people’s lives and to decide how to vote. They are not drawn to the newspaper’s editorial and opinion pages as much as Boomers are nor to the business coverage. Your job, Xers seem to be saying, is to give us the news and information in a straightforward manner. We’ll decide what we think about it.

Gallagher: So what do we do now? Incorporate this age group in all coverage, not just entertainment or Generation X stories. Make sure when covering local, national, and international news that we look for items relevant to their particular interests and concerns. Take a leadership role in bringing this generation into public life. Include younger voters in election coverage packages. Encourage them to vote and to become active participants in their communities. Cover communities as Xers define them. Make sure business news is focused on careers and the job market. Cover career opportunities, news on renting apartments, smart shopping. Recognize the importance of ads, particularly classifieds. Xers want the news straight, but they want to talk back, so add e-mail and voice mail to all of your methods of responding to the newspaper. Create a dialogue with young people that finds its way to the news pages.

Fielder: Gen Xers read newspapers a lot like Boomers do. Some 7 of 10 of both groups say they skim the headlines first and then read what’s of interest. About 2 of 10 go only to specific items or sections, particularly men who presumably go to sports. Newspapers may have a problem with how frequently Xers read, but once they pick up the newspaper, they read it pretty thoroughly. The vast majority of Xers say they read at least half of the paper, something Boomers also do.

But there are clouds on the horizon. When Xers were asked how they would feel if they weren’t able to read a newspaper for quite some time, a majority of readers said they would miss the paper and a few even said they would feel lost without it, but a substantial minority — 43 percent — said they could get along easily without the newspaper. That’s considerably more than the 28 percent of Boomers who could get along easily without their newspapers. Still, there is much hope. Forty-four percent of Generation X readers say they are reading the newspaper more frequently now than they were one year ago. Only 12 percent are reading less frequently.

Gallagher: We need to mainstream the news young readers want. We need to treat Xers like the adults they are, but recognize that those adults are going to stray if newspapers don’t begin believing their concerns are important enough to be played on the regular pages of the newspaper. Many Gen Xers are reading more frequently than they did a year ago. We need to find ways to let them know there is more good stuff in tomorrow’s newspaper. We need to build loyalty with Xers now by covering their issues. Get 20-something faces and words into our newspapers beyond crime and sports. Get in more news about what they’re doing every day.

Fielder: Fewer than 1 in 10 in Generation X is a hard-core nonreader who never reads a weekday or Sunday newspaper or reads very infrequently. Mostly, these young people say they don’t read because they have no need for newspapers. They get plenty of information from television and radio news, supplemented by magazines and, for some, the Internet and online services. To a lesser extent they don’t read newspapers because they don’t like them. Newspapers are too time consuming, too boring, too depressing, these nonreaders say. And they are a waste of time because they don’t cover things Xers are interested in. Besides, these nonreaders add, newspapers are primarily for older people and old news by the time they are printed. Compared to Gen X readers, nonreaders are more likely to be female, single and less well-educated. They have more negative perceptions of newspapers and aren’t nearly as interested in the topics newspapers traditionally cover.

So, do these nonreaders use nontraditional newspapers? Well, compared to Gen X readers, Gen X nonreaders also don’t pay as much attention to alternative weeklies. During a typical month, nearly half of these nonreaders also do not read the free distribution weeklies that are available in their area. But among those nonreaders who do look at the alternative weeklies, nearly half say they find them more useful than traditional newspapers. Thank goodness, only 19 percent of Gen X newspaper readers think the weeklies are more useful.

Penetration of the Internet and commercial online services is relatively low among Gen X readers and nonreaders alike. At present, fewer than 3 in 10 are modem-equipped to get their information online. Fewer than 2 in 10 actually use the Internet or one or more of the commercial online services. Still, these numbers are higher than the national average, and the Internet is growing rapidly. So the warning signs are there. Newspapers need to continue efforts to introduce their content and services to this group of young computer users. What do Gen Xers believe about newspapers? To start, well over half of readers describe the newspaper as being an easy way to get the news, useful, interesting to read, and a good value for the money. They reject the notions that newspapers are primarily for older people and are dull and boring. Still, Xer readers don’t evaluate newspapers as highly on these dimensions as Boomers do.

Now, I must stop for just a minute and tell you that on page 33 of your printed report a footnote was inadvertently left out. That means that table has information that you may misinterpret. For example, you need to put the word “not” in front of “primarily for older people” and the word “not” in front of “dull and boring.” Now ASNE is going to make available these changes probably through The American Editor or some other way, but if you will let me know, I’ll be happy to fax you the table myself.

The biggest differences in beliefs about newspapers show up between Gen X readers and nonreaders. Nonreaders are much less likely than their Gen X counterparts to say newspapers are an easy way to get the news, have useful information, and are interesting. They also find newspapers far less fun to read, less accurate, less factual, and less concerned about the community than readers do.

But don’t be misled. Gen Xers who read newspapers do not have high praise for them on a variety of dimensions. In particular, they criticize newspapers for sensationalizing the news. They also question whether newspapers are fair and unbiased, whether newspapers watch out for their interests, whether they tell the whole story, and for some, whether newspapers can be trusted. But for the most part, Gen X readers are no more critical of newspapers on these dimensions than Boomers are, except Xers are more likely to say newspapers sensationalize the news. Each year the Yankelovich Monitor asks Gen Xers how much confidence they have in a variety of people and institutions including those you see here. In 1995, only 12 percent of Gen Xers said they have a great deal of confidence in news reports, in newspapers, down 4 points since 1990 to a level equivalent to television news.

Gallagher: The ASNE members who read this report in advance advised us to do stories of relevance and substance to the 20-something crowd. Add meaning and depth, not necessarily length, in an effort to increase Xer confidence and belief in newspaper reports. Recognize that Gen Xers may have a different take on what is factual and what is fair. Try to understand why Xers believe newspapers sensationalize the news and act on what you find out. Get young people involved in roundtable discussions and reader panels. Get to know them better through market research but also through personal contact. Assign staffers to interview young people who read your paper as well as those who don’t.

Fielder: Regardless of whether or not they currently read newspapers, the young people of Generation X rank news about their city, town, and neighborhood, along with crime news and national news, at the top of the list of 32 content interests. For Gen X readers, other types of news are highly interesting as well: state and international news, school and education news, and news of their regions. For Gen X nonreaders, TV listings and program information, lists of things to do, movie reviews, and even science and technology float to the top. What I am talking about here are rank orders. Keep in mind that nonreaders express less interest than readers do in virtually all of the topics we asked about. Now, it is true that Gen X readers express less interest than Boomers do in most categories of news, but Xers are more interested in all types of sports, particularly college and pro sports, than Boomers are. And they are more interested in information that helps them decide how to spend their leisure time — movie reviews, TV listings, and concert information, for example, and anything that helps them with the development of their careers. For many in Gen X, advertising is a main reason they come to the newspaper in the first place. They are particularly interested in coupons, movie ads, and classified ads for jobs. Even Gen X nonreaders are interested, suggesting these ad categories could be potential content and promotional hooks.

Gallagher: Know that Xers have different priorities in coverage. They want to know about higher education, fitness and cyberspace. You can’t cover careers and job opportunities enough, but make sure Xers see themselves in the business and feature pages. Too many newspapers treat computers like work tools. Xers see them as fun toys too. Keep a list of fun and interesting Web sites to visit. Spectator sports are important to Xers, but so are recreational sports. Tell them where to go hiking and where to go cycling, as well as the scores of last night’s games. Entertainment sections should be geared to the 20-something crowd, recognizing that this generation spends more time and money on entertainment than older, more settled readers. Do features on where to take dates, do features on new and trendy restaurants, clubs and entertainers. Find out where the 20-something shop. Find out what ads are in the alternative newspapers, and then get those ads into your daily.

Fielder: If Gen Xers edited your newspaper, what would it be like? For starters, it would be better organized so Xers can find what they want. There would be more fun in it, more things that are entertaining to read. The reporting would look for new approaches to show more solutions, not just problems, and the paper would offer more things that interest young people. Fewer jumps would be important but only slightly more so than explanations of complex issues and in-depth stories that go beyond the headlines. More listings also score well, including lists of upcoming events, places to find more information and places to buy things.

Gallagher: We all have Gen Xers in our newsrooms. Get them involved in news decisions. Keep them in on the personnel policy-making decisions, but don’t expect them to leave their Gen X personalities at the doorstep. Make sure your young writers keep editors on top of trends from the newest hairdos to the TV show “Friends,” to roundups of coffee shops, to five-toed socks, which I’m told are very cool. Promote talented younger people who don’t necessarily share the same views as older newsroom managers, and make sure younger staff members express their beliefs at staff meetings, but don’t just listen. Enact some of the proposals made by younger people, not just those in the newsroom, but from those outside as well.

You’ll find much, much more in the printed report on understanding Generation X, which we hope you’ll read carefully. Sean, Jenny, and I will take questions from the audience later, but for now, let’s turn to Adam Platt for his comments.

Remarks by Adam Platt

Thanks Tim. I’m going to come at this a little differently from what you’ve just heard, and talk a little less about the what and a little more about the why of Generation X, and I use the term cautiously. Generation X is a pejorative term to most members of this generation. They see it as a media label and a Baby Boomer label. I’ll use it for convenience purposes, but I would urge you to avoid using it in interaction with them either in your newspapers or in person.

I’ll start out with a little story. The other morning I opened the door to my hotel room and found about five newspapers sitting in the hall. A front story in USA Today was about the Menendez sentencing. As I started to look at it, I turned on the TV and the “Today” show was dealing with the identical story. I found myself, as a 32-year-old caught on the cusp of Baby Boomer-Generation X, trying to decide if I was going to be a Boomer and read the story in the newspaper or an Xer and watch it on TV. I made a very reflexive, emotional decision to put down the newspaper and watch the “Today” show. That decision points out a lot of the perils that newspapers face in trying to address this generation and reaching them effectively. What you just heard from the Generation X report was a lot about the trees. Let me take us back and look at the forest a little bit more.

I’ve developed a theory about how younger people approach news gathering and determine their preferences for information sources. It’s based primarily on the thesis that newspapers no longer control the media use agenda in this country. Fifty or 75 years ago newspapers could determine the agenda. They defined it. They put it in the paper. People liked it or they didn’t. Newspapers controlled the agenda in a way that they can’t anymore. Generation X and some of the younger Baby Boomers have come of age in an era when the electronic media, television, in particular, is at its maturity. The electronic media are an all encompassing information source that can provide virtually everything a newspaper can, especially everything of relevance to these young people. But more important than what is provided is how it’s communicated.

The electronic media are shaping what young people expect from information gathering and media sources. And because the electronic media are shaping these tastes, newspapers can’t effectively speak to Generation X on the newspapers’ terms. Newspapers have to go after younger readers on the terms of the electronic media, and that is a difficult challenge. At the core is this generation’s expectation of entertainment in the course of their information gathering. Television — news programming and entertainment programming — is about entertainment. Most people in television, even those in TV news, would acknowledge that if they were honest. Most of us in the print media understand it in much more fundamental way. If you aren’t entertaining these young people in your product, then you aren’t going to succeed fully with them. You’ll remain a passive, take-it-or-leave-it entity in their media choices.

What is it about television and how television and the electronic media communicate that makes it so difficult for newspapers? It comes down to an issue of emotion, a visceral connection with the audience. The electronic media are hot in that they make a very emotive, basic core connection. They are evocative. Younger people who have grown up on television expect a passionate connection with their information sources.

It is a connection that is very difficult for newspapers because newspapers are opposite by design. Newspapers are, of all the print media, the coldest. They are the most mediated, which is a term communication theorists use to describe the process by which information goes from its source into the newspaper — through multiple stages of editing and filtering to the point where it is often very difficult to get a sense of what it was like to be at the event — what it looked like, what it smelled like, what it felt like, what people were doing and saying. It’s been about objectivity, and it’s been about balance, and it’s been about not injecting things into stories that could be perceived as bias or subjectivity. But this very quality that is at the core of newspapers’ being is alienating to these younger readers. It bores them. It doesn’t engage them on an emotional, visceral level.

I believe part of their desire for an emotional connection has to do with the breakdown in family and community. More Xers come from broken families and from broken communities than any living generation. They are searching for a personal connection, an insight into how other people live and what their values are in a way that a lot of you probably couldn’t relate to. That’s why events like the Simpson trial and the Menendez trial, which were discussed yesterday as being overplayed, were important to this generation. There were a lot of insights about people, emotional, core insights that this generation doesn’t normally have access to in the course of daily life: how celebrities and other people live, problems in families. The trials were real-life soap operas and very engaging. When we talk about how we are going to connect with Generation X, we need to remember that we aren’t looking at what the electronic media communicate. Newspapers that have tried to out television television have quickly learned they can’t. We need to look more at how the electronic media communicate and engage people.

It’s very difficult to articulate a simple and brief set of solutions for newspapers to reach younger people on this more fundamental level, but I’ll go through a few. I believe solutions are going to be difficult for newspapers.

You need to treat problems, not symptoms. It’s not so much that you have to fill your newspapers with pictures and shorter stories because these people have low attention spans, but you need to understand what it is about photos and story length that engages Generation X. We get back to the issue of emotion and visceral connection. A photo of a building is not — no matter how many photos you run —going to engage this group. A photo that carries a great deal of emotion and passion will.

A second solution is that you have to keep the entertainment mind-set at the core of what you are doing. I realize to many of you that is anathema. It is heresy. Your job is not to entertain. Your job is to tell people what’s important. But the landscape has changed. If you want to tell people what’s important and you can’t do it in an entertaining way, you are not going to reach Generation X. And, frankly, you are not going to reach the generations that come after them.

Generation X is not an oddball group that will pass through the decades and be replaced by one that behaves more in ways that you are used to and more traditionally. Generation X exhibits symptoms of cultural changes in the way people use media, based on the dominance of the electronic media in our culture.

Another approach is a very fundamental approach in newspapering, but one that newspapers have gotten away from — and that is storytelling. When we talk about how to reach these people in a more emotional, visceral way, a lot of it is just with good writing and good storytelling. It’s with voice. It’s avoiding the dispassionate tone. It’s connecting people with other people and their lives and their feelings. It’s not covering Washington as much as it is covering how Washington’s decisions are affecting people in your communities. This is something you’re all talking about at your papers today. It’s just something you need to do more of.

Another area is context over objectivity. You need to find ways to communicate with these people and fill holes in their information gathering. Television, due to its short form, along with radio and other electronic media have a lot of difficulty going into depth, and what a lot of people are looking for is truth. They’re looking to separate BS from reality. A wonderful thing that newspapers can do right now is provide context for people. That means saying, “Well, the statement this politician made really doesn’t sync with what he’s been doing for the last 2 1/2 years.” Generation Xers would love to see that in newspaper stories because they’re very savvy about manipulation: political manipulation, marketing manipulation. They know when they’re being manipulated, and when they see manipulation carried out in newspapers in article after article because that’s what objectivity demands, they lose interest.

This is not a one- or two-year process. This is a 20- or 30-year process. As this generation and generations after it move into the mainstream of American culture, newspapers won’t be as concerned with serving the traditional readership base as with serving Generation X. If you start taking small steps now, over time you’re going to get there.

Look to areas of your publications that manifest these strengths already: fundamentally, the sports section. We’ve already learned from the Generation X report that the sports section is the primary entry-point for male Generation X readers and that male Generation X readers are primarily the Xers who use newspapers heavily. Sports sections manifest many of the qualities I talked about earlier. Even the beat writing includes analysis. It’s full of opinion, commentary, all sorts of little contextual information, scores, and the little agate type that people can’t find other places. In the years to come, possibly it will be easier to access this information via the Internet. I don’t know. Right now it’s still a unique niche for newspapers. And although it may sound like heresy, trying to apply elements of the sports section model to the rest of the newspaper may prove a relatively simple and painless way to go about reaching Generation X. This resource and this approach and this paradigm is already at work in your own papers. It isn’t something foreign. It’s just foreign to the news sections.

Gallagher: Adam, let me see if we have some questions from the audience. I’ll do what President Ketter did though, and steal the first question for you. Yesterday, we heard a report on congressional coverage that said if you can find a politician to say the sky is blue, you don’t necessarily have to find one that says the sky is red. It seems to me you’re telling us that, for Gen Xers, we ought to be writing a story that tells them why the sky is any color at all.

Platt: Right. Or talk to the people who are affected by the color of the sky. Xers are alienated from politics. They view it as an exercise in futility, and they’re not really interested in what happens in Washington. If you can connect it to their own lives and the lives of real people, it’s going to be much more valuable. But you have to tell these people stories. You can’t just talk about them. You need to talk to them.

Questions from the floor

Arnold Rosenfeld, Cox Newspapers: A slightly heretical question for Jenny Fielder. It seems from what I hear, Generation X is very interested in the ad content of the paper. If this were a group of ad directors, what would you be telling them ... better ads? ... better clients? ... better content?

Fielder: Yes. All of those things. When you look at a lot of the ads in our newspapers, they’re not very good. They’re not stylish. They’re dirty. They’re muddy. ... I don’t think that we’ve paid nearly the amount of attention to the advertising portion of our newspapers in terms of content and style as we have to other parts. I’d also say that packaging and adjacencies make a big difference. I’d appeal to the editors in the room to do everything they can to work with the business side on these packaging issues.

Rosenfeld: Are you saying this to the ad directors?

Fielder: Next week, I will be saying these things to NAA.

Gary L. Blonston, Knight-Ridder, Washington, D.C.: The problem of attracting young readers seems like a perennial in the business, as do some of the solutions you all have talked about today. If you were to control for age in comparing Generation Xers to Baby Boomers, would you find distinctions beyond access to the Web?

Fielder: There are a few, Gary. One is that Xers read newspapers at a lower level than Boomers did at the same age. That’s the primary data point I have. Sean, do you have a cohort analysis? That’s the techy term for what you’re asking about.

Keller: Since Yankelovich Monitor goes back to 1971, we have the ability to look at groups that were 16-to-29 then versus 16-to-29 now. What you see are very fundamental differences in attitudes and values. Boomers have always been sort of self-focused — that’s a little harsh to say — very focused about their appearance, about other things along those lines, very much information gatherers. So, yes, to answer your question, there are very fundamental differences that emerge when you control for age.

Blonston: Are there in any of those values more subtle guidances that we might apply? Because when I looked at your numbers on the board, there didn’t seem to be a lot of statistical differences between the two groups, even at older ages.

Keller: That’s a good question. I’d have to go back to the particular document that does the cohorting to really address that information. I don’t have it right off the top of my head, but I’ll certainly look into that for you.

Gallagher: One of the things the Change Committee has agreed to do this year is to continue this study, and maybe that’s an area they can go into. Gil?

Gil Thelen, Columbia (S.C.) State: Question for Jenny and Adam. Assuming for a moment that newsroom resources are zero-sum and they’re being efficiently used, what would you do less of in order to do more of what you’re talking about — particularly entertainment and sports — in such a way that don’t injure the product for your traditional readers?

Fielder: I’m going to turn that over to Adam.

Platt: Tim McGuire and I talked a lot about this at the Star Tribune, and, frankly, if you have a lot of money to spend the best way to start is to create a separate product. It’s the least risky way. You don’t carry the baggage and the image of the newspaper’s lack of hipness with you. You can start targeting these readers and eventually find ways to integrate them into the product. If you don’t have that kind of money to spend, you have to take small steps. One of the fundamental things I haven’t really talked about is that you have to get some people on your staffs who are of this generation. They intuitively approach storytelling and their whole paradigm of news gathering and conveying information without the kind of studying and reports we need. Things will happen naturally. There’ll be some conflict, but that’s the only way to do it. If you have to keep it within the paper, entertainment, arts and lifestyle coverage are other entry points besides sports, especially for women. You have to enhance that coverage, and make sure you have people of that generation writing in those sections.

Barbara Mantz Drake, Peoria (Ill.) Journal Star: I’m interested in the research findings that young people, Generation Xers, are not so much interested in opinion and editorial pages, but in “Just give me the facts, I’ll make up my own mind.” At the same time I’m hearing Adam say that we need to have more context and more analysis. That seems a bit contradictory to me, and I wondered if you would address that. What kind of suggestions do you have for editorial-page editors for reaching this generation?

Fielder: A lot of it is about tone and style. When we asked Gen Xers about editorial pages they were reacting to today’s editorial pages. In some experimental work within Knight-Ridder we’ve seen Gen Xers coming to the newspaper more when they see themselves and hear their voices on the editorial page.

Gen Xers, just like Boomers, aren’t all alike. There are some who gravitate more to the visceral kind of emotional coverage that Adam talks about. There are others for whom just the straight text is more important. Sean, would you agree with that?

Keller: I’d agree with that.

Fielder: So part of it is teasing out the multiplicity of this generation and knowing where you want your newspaper to be. I believe that the more you can encourage young people to become involved in their communities — to vote, to become citizens, and, yes, even to participate in town meetings — the more likely they are to believe in this medium and to pay attention to it.

Gallagher: Jenny is a friend of mine, but Alan is my boss, and in the interest of “just pay me,” Alan?

Alan M. Horton, Scripps Howard, Cincinnati: I’m OK with that. I’d better ask a tough question though. Jenny, I listened with confusion a little to the statistics about bias that the Generation Xers allegedly find in the newspaper. And then I listened to one of the prescriptions for solution, which is to turn the whole paper into a kind of sports section.

Fielder: One you heard from Adam; the other you heard from me.

Horton: OK, what is it specifically that they blame us for and charge as bias?

Fielder: I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll tell you that when you look at the data, it’s not just about Generation Xers. It is about Boomers and a lot of people in this country. They feel newspapers sensationalize the news, they feel that we’re not fair, that in many ways we are biased. People feel newspapers don’t reflect the world in the ways that they see it. A lot of the discussion yesterday about public journalism, and a lot of our discussions about how real people can see themselves when they look at newspapers, is very important, not only for this generation but for all of America. It’s not about people distrusting the media because it’s of television. It’s about us as well, and I’ll be happy to go into that with you in more detail offline.

Gallagher: Dennis, one last question.

Dennis R. Hetzel, York (Pa.) Daily Record: I have what amounts to a follow-up to an earlier one. It strikes me that to a significant extent, at least some extent, you’ve described mainly the difference between being in your 20s and being in your 40s. How are you predicting that the Generation Xers will be different in their 40s than people who are now in their 40s?

Platt: The changes in media use and the changes in expectations are the differences that will manifest themselves most profoundly. These people aren’t Martians; they’re not totally different from generations before them; but they have fundamentally different expectations that have been shaped by the electronic media. That’s where you are going to see the differences, not in how much they buy and how many homes they own.

Fielder: I agree with Adam on that. If you look at older Boomers like me and younger Boomers like him, we are different, and the differences are going to be maintained through time on the dimension that Adam is talking about.

Gallagher: Sean, Jenny, and Adam, I want to thank you all very much. It has been an interesting panel. I know you’ll be around to answer questions. Bill Ketter has an important reminder for us at this time.