Published: August 05, 1998
Last Updated: May 20, 1999
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Readership

Convention workshop offers dozens of tips on reaching, keeping young newspaper readers ranging from writing cartoon captions to high school news pages

By Joe Distelheim and Rena Pederson

Here’s a young readership test for editors:

Imagine a family with students in high school and college. The parents go out of town. The students sleep late. Watch TV. Send e-mail to friends on the Internet. What’s in the daily newspaper that would compel them to get up, go outside and bring in the printed product?

Would the papers stack up in the front yard in your market?

Or would there be something to draw a young mind?

A room full of editors wrestled with those questions at the workshop on "Hooking Younger Readers" at the ASNE convention in April. And they came up with dozens of ways to catch the interest of the 13-to-20-ish crowd.

Here are some highlights:

• Staffers under 30 at the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News write a lifestyle column aimed at "Generation X" called "My So-Called Life" as well as an advice column called "‘Our 4 cents."
• The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, has a youth editor, Lorraine Eaton, who is also president of the recently founded Youth Editors Association of America. She oversees ideas that will draw teen readers, including a special section on Fridays called "The Daily Teenology Break" with features on prom outfits, teen magazines, congressional internships and such.
• The Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat sponsors an entertainment tabloid called "Break" that plays up rock concerts and hip movies. Irreverent promotional items from beer openers to condoms are sometimes used to promote the tab to the 20-something crowd. It’s produced separately from the newsroom.
• The Los Angeles Times runs a variation of its popular "Laugh Line" humor items aimed at the younger market.
• The Greenville (S.C.) News runs a page of high school news in its Saturday metro section.
• The Dallas Morning News features opinion columns written by younger readers on the op-ed page under the heading of "Young Voices." School classes also have responded enthusiastically to "Do-It-Yourself" cartoons where the caption "bubbles" are left blank, inviting reader suggestions.
• The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville runs a features section called "The Rap" on Wednesdays that includes an ongoing Rap Line poll inviting reader feedback. Questions have included "Do you still watch ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ now that the cast is out of college?" "Has your school cafeteria food improved?" "Did you really do your summer reading or use Cliff’s Notes?"
• The Herald in Everett, Wash., has developed a "Kid Science" feature to answer questions like "How Does A Thunderstorm Work?" The Herald also prints all the local high school commencement addresses.
• The Roanoke (Va.) Times regularly seeks out young readers for quotes as part of "survey" response stories related to breaking news.
• The Oregonian in Portland has made "The Edge," a strip of zippy items along the side of its lifestyle section, a must-read for adults as well as young people who want to know what’s hot and what’s not. (Politically correct euphemisms for throwing up after a night of overindulgence included Ork, Chooom, Spunge, Woof, Shout at Your Shoes, Laugh at the Carpet, Chew Backwards and Reverse Drink.)