Newspaper process failure

Young people don’t read newspapers, and circulation as such for mainstream newspapers - local, regional and national - is trapped in a downwards spine. Put on the line you could say that if nothing efficient is done you can plot the day when the last newspaper closes down.

Desperate times calls for desperate measures. But are the measures newspapers are taking in getting to understand their audience desperate enough?

Last night I visited with a big local newspaper. I asked them what they did to ensure that they understood my needs for a local paper and the key to turning me into a subscriber. The answer was essentially: Nothing.

It’s not all true. They did use a regular phone panel, which they can turn to and ask questions about which way to take the newspaper. The only problem with that is that the questions being asked is formulated by the newspaper itself. And all of us who have tried to design surveys know that you collect answers biased by the way you ask the questions.

The question is therefore, whether you can really use this proces, or whether this is a real proces failure. Nothing from the circulation numbers indicate that the method is working.

So what should newspapers do? Well, for starters they could start getting out of their offices and really just wander about with an open mind, talk to people and get an understanding of what’s on the agenda with the local butcher, the teacher, the blacksmith, the young student etc. What’s important to them? What are they thinking of? What are the issues they think about? Etc.

I think that by trying to listen in with an open and unbiased mind, there would be gold to harvest for the newspapers. Gold that could be applied to product development and make the newspaper as a product more appealing and - first and last - relevant to me (and everybody else) as a reader.

Because let me make one thing clear, which I think newspapers have forgotten: No product is so important that I will buy it, if it’s not relevant for me. After all we live in a time with abundant choice and amble opportunity for substitution. Please get that!