Why Johnny Won't Read Newsday

The following is not a paid endorsement for online news, I swear: "What works for me, and I think I'm speaking for a lot of people in my age group, is the Internet. It's absolutely convenient." So says one Joshua Glas, a 26-year-old software salesman held up by New York's Newsday newspaper as the typical young person who would rather go online for news than use a musty, dusty old newspaper.

Newsday's James Madore probably only needed to eavesdrop on one meeting of the publishers of his own paper to realize the truth revealed in his article: "young adults are turning away from the news media their parents and grandparents rely on for information" (i.e. newspapers and the network news) and turning to fast-paced cable news and online news. The article is a nice summation of various recent trends -- newsweeklies trying to target younger readers, the Chicago battle of RedEye and Red Streak, and even newspaper sites requiring subscriptions and registrations. Sadly, the article's headline, "Why Johnny Won't Read," is missing an all-important word at the end: "Newspapers."

Nowhere does the article argue that younger people are illiterate; perhaps they are pressed for time, and looking for quick summations, but they're not totally in avoidance. Madore does touch on some of the erosion of newspaper readership, but doesn't really make the freebie connection. Could young people be going online for free news vs. paying for newspaper subscriptions -- similar to those who download music vs. paying for CDs? Of course the newspapers can stem the tide by charging here and there but ... the perfect business model online hasn't been found yet.

Old media types might bristle at the idea of a job at a Web adjunct to a newspaper or TV network, but the kids seem to love this Internet thing. Just ask Bridgestone Tire, which is running a contest for journalism students in Europe to get work featured on a Web site (not in Le Monde or The Times of London, note). Granted, the contest really ends up being a ruse to get students to write thinly veiled ad copy for tires, but the point is clear. Even musty old tire companies don't want the association with musty old newspapers.

Finally on the subject of generation gaps is the perception by these same youth that the Columbia crash was overplayed by the media. This story seemed to be popping up all week, from The Washington Post's online chat to the Tallahassee Democrat. "It's another event in a really long string of tragic occurrences," one student shrugged to the Democrat in a typical response to the tragedy. Another told the Post he was upset so many TV programs were pre-empted on Saturday. It's yet another old guard/new guard perception problem, with the kids thinking of space shuttles as no big deal, and the pain of Sept. 11 bringing a numbness and sameness to the bad news that seems to be played up every day.

Work vs. Play

Now that we've established that the kids like the Internet for news, we can also throw in American workers, who have shown in survey after survey that they like using their high-speed Net connection at work to check news, do shopping, and download music. That is, they like doing personal stuff on the company dime. That always seemed like a bad recipe to me (especially for news sites that were touting themselves as popular with workers), and News.com recently confirmed my fears. The site found that Liberty Media was curtailing workers' access to online gaming, dating and eBay. And some analysts wondered if this trend would extend to employers cutting off all non-work sites.

But before this reality could even sink in, a new survey finds that workers are spending even more time at home doing work online than they are goofing off at work. The Washington Post says that the National Technology Readiness Survey showed that people with Net access at work and at home spent an average of 5.9 hours a week working at home, and spent 3.7 hours a week at work doing personal surfing. So, in the end, are we a nation of lollygagging Net slackers at work, or workaholics who can't leave our office behind?

Most likely, we are both. Painfully addicted to getting the news and staying connected. And painfully aware that we have to get our work done in a crappy economy -- even at home. One usually unreported item made the story, which I had to like as a longtime work-at-home type. One manager admitted that, "At the office, I get so many interruptions throughout the course of the day ... it's easier to do [some work] at home." The new paradigm? Play at work, and work at home.