How newspapers attract readers

¶ … decline of newspaper readership. The author examines the statistics, the attempt by newspapers to attract readers by turning to sensationalism, and the opinions of experts in the field about how to increase readership. The author then proposes an ethical solution to the problem that avoids sensationalism but still provides the readers with what they want.

Across the nation, every morning, millions of readers sit down to a cup of coffee and open a newspaper. It has been an American tradition for many years. Recently, however, the technological explosion has provided additional methods from which to retrieve the news. Television, cable and the Internet work to attract newspaper readers to their forum.

Newspaper editors are concerned about keeping readers and attracting new ones due to readership data that reveals a sharp decline of Americans reading a daily newspaper. In order to attract new readers, newspapers often employ tactics such as sensationalizing news, printing graphic photos and increasing celebrity entertainment pieces. How can newspapers balance the need to report hard news as well as capture the attention of readers without sensationalizing it or do they have a duty to adapt their style of news reporting to meet reader demands?

Across the nation, the newspaper industry is losing its readership. Declining statistics show evidence that newspapers are losing out to other methods of news delivery. Whether it is online, cable television, or regular television, evidence can be found that people are turning away from print media and turning to visual media to get their news.

Research shows that there has been a significant decrease in readership numbers in the newspaper industry over the past four decades. Today 54% of Americans read newspapers. This is a decline from the 81% of Americans who read newspapers in 1961. Recent research indicates that only 26% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 read a newspaper.

The industry has been touched by many problems, including circulation scandals, falling readership and sliding profits.

Television has lured millions of Americans away from newspapers and to the television set. News shows, sound bites, and entertainment news shows have all worked to compete against the print media for customers.

On any given night, one only has to turn on the television to have a choice of news sources to choose from. Entertainment tonight, the Today Show and others have successfully lured millions of previous newspaper readers away from the newspaper.

Part of that allure may be the personalized interviews that television news offers. Celebrity sound bites and tidbits work to attract viewers who may have previously turned to a newspaper for their news coverage.

Reader Needs and Wants

Experts in the field of news say that editors and newspaper executives are working to provide what readers want. According to newspaper across the nation, readers want more investigative reports, health fitness news, environmental issue coverage, and education news. In addition, readers want to receive coverage about natural disasters and catastrophic accidents. This is one of the areas that television often competes in. Television can show footage of tsunamis, earthquakes, forest fires and other things that interest readers. Newspapers have recently been turning to a more sensationalist approach to try and maintain the interest of their readers.

Sometimes the sensationalism is obvious, as is often the case of celebrity deaths. Other times it is more subtle. One example is when newspapers report why a high school or college sports player is not in a game. Whether it is a suspension, a pulled muscle or another problem, newspapers have begun to elaborate on such things more and more often.

Newspapers won't win a lot of points for identifying suspended athletes. That doesn't mean they should shirk from reporting the facts. Missing players can affect a team's performance. If a player is injured, it's reported. If someone is out for other reasons, that ought to be told, too. There are other reasons for telling the truth: Suspended players, looking perfectly healthy, sit on the bench during a game. Fans deserve to be told why. Players may miss a game for other legitimate reasons. A general statement -- "several players were missing either due to suspensions or injuries" -- unfairly brands them all."

In trying to get away from sensationalism newspapers tried to adopt different programs designed to attack the problem of declining readership from a different angle.

Several newspapers adopted a program to try and combat declining readership together Two programs were initiated by the Newspaper Association of America.

The path to the future is already an obstacle race," outgoing NAA chairman John Curley said at the organization's annual meeting in Chicago this week. "We have to clean out the clutter of past practices that simply aren't going to cut it with advertisers who have more ways, and more places, to spend their money (Consoli, 1997)."

Curley, who is president and CEO of Gannett Co., told fellow executives that newspapers "must continue the good start we've made in cleaning up our shop to make us a partner with our advertisers - rather than the nightmare we've sometimes been in the past (Consoli, 1997)."

One of the programs, called Partners 2000 was designed to improve the relationship that was shared between daily newspapers and their advertisers. Since the beginning of print media, advertisers and print media have been at odds. Advertisers have wanted to have some creative control over the editorial content and the editorial workers have balked every step of the way, citing professional integrity.

This program was designed to place the two on the same side, increasing readership for a win-win situation.

While a plan to improve service to advertisers and readers is vital to the future of newspapers, Curley said there is also a need to reinforce to advertisers the strengths of newspapers (Consoli, 1997).

National research shows that when customers seek advertising information for real estate, new or used cars, groceries, major appliances and furniture, about two-thirds or more turn to our newspapers," Curley said (Consoli, 1997).

On any given day, 78.2 million adults pick up one of our products (Consoli, 1997)," he said. "Stretch that out to five days and the number climbs to 101.8 million. Three out of four people with incomes between $35,000 and $75,000 read our newspapers. And research now shows that pass-along readership adds 20% to our circulation numbers. We must start promoting our readership numbers like other media do (Consoli, 1997)."

It's ironic that for a medium that so many turn to in telling their stories, we've been notably absent in telling our own," said NAA president and CEO John Sturm. "We have to do a much better job of getting up close and personal with readers and advertisers alike and tell the story of an aggressive, and very relevant business. We have to clean out the clutter of past practices that simply aren't going to cut it with advertisers who have more ways, and more places, to place their business than ever before (Consoli, 1997)."

The ethical question of using sensationalism to attract readers continues to be asked. Are newspapers simply giving readers what they want to keep their attention, or are they stepping over an ethical line in a desperate attempt to maintain their readership? It is a question that is debated nationwide in the industry.

A few years ago, rag news such as the National Enquirer and the Star were laughed at by "real" journalists. Today however, "real" journalists find themselves in a position of having to lean more toward celebrity gossip and sensationalized stories to attract readers to their work.

It is not difficult to understand how the shift has taken place (Cornog, 2005).

The data on readership are consistent and depressing. Vin Crosbie pointed to statistics that showed that in 1964, 81% of Americans read a daily newspaper, while today that figure hovers around 54%. Soon newspaper readers will be a minority of the population, given the even more distressing figures he cited concerning the reading habits of younger Americans. As recently as 1997, 39% of Americans 18 to 34 were reading newspapers regularly; by 2001 this had dropped to 26%. That statistic is even worse than it seems, because newspaper reading-or nonreading -- is a habit, like smoking or a preference for Coke or Pepsi, that once acquired tends to remain in place. The older Americans who are the mainstay of newspaper subscriber lists have been reading newspapers since their teens and twenties, and younger Americans who have not yet picked up the habit are not likely to develop it later in life (Cornog, 2005)."

The largest competition for newspaper readers has proven to be television.

Even though people, when polled, find TV" to be a much less satisfying leisure activity than more active and sociable diversions, the power of the tube continues to rise. (and even TV watching has become less social -- the family room has emptied out as each family member has acquired a personal TV set. Mindich points out that in 1970 only 6% of sixth graders had TVs in their rooms: today the figure is 77%.) (Cornog, 2005)."

Newspapers have reflected the change in many ways including more celebrity coverage. When asked why they respond with "The readers want it."

The editors in Louisville devoted one of their sessions to the subject, "Celebrity Coverage -- Where's the Line... And Have We Crossed it?" But in addressing that topic much time was spent discussing how to use celebrity" coverage to attract readers. Lorrie Lynch, who covers celebrities for USA Weekend, urged the editors to capitalize upon celebrity" coverage to attract new readers. And the gossip columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune known simply as C.J., offered advice on how to cover celebrities if you don't have the good fortune to be in New York or Los Angeles (Cornog, 2005)."

Covering celebrities was only one suggestion to lure new readers. In addition, there were suggestions about reporting on things that interest young readers including investigative reporting, health and fitness news and other things that are germane to the life of the young adult population of America.

Clearly, a declining newspaper business must pay attention to its customers' wants if it is to survive. Good ideas about how to do this were in abundance at the APME convention. And none of the journalists were saying that hard news coverage should be abandoned in pursuit of profits. But profits may be hard to come by if the public does not want to read the hard news (Cornog, 2005)."

The newspaper industry is unique in that readers are rarely concerned with the business end of things. All they want is to read a good and solid story, without being concerned with the business of keeping the presses rolling. Those who work in the industry however are concerned as they try and boost readership to overcome falling circulation numbers (Woolfolk, 2005).

Strong advertising sales overcame falling circulation to boost Knight Ridder's net income 8.2% to $107.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2004, the company said in January 2005(Woolfolk, 2005)."

Another ethically questionable attempt to boost readership has been to inflate circulation numbers. The Tribune admitted earlier this year that the numbers previously reported had been inflated.

Spokespeople for the company "told analysts at a media conference in New York that the company had settled with more than 20,000 advertisers, including more than 75% of the newspaper's top 350 advertisers. He said that all of the newspaper's top 10 accounts had agreed to settlements based on either cash payment or future advertising space.