Can Teens Save the Newspaper Business?

Early last year I attended a conference, hosted by the Time Warner Foundation, for adults who help teens produce their own media. One of the writers I'd worked with, 20-year-old Miguel, came with me. He listened intently when a panel of editors and producers from mainstream media outlets mentioned their desire to appeal to a younger audience. It's a hot topic, as newspapers and television news have steadily lost young readers and viewers for the last two decades.

Miguel sensed that he might be part of the solution. His articles for Represent, the magazine by teens in foster care, which I edited, were among the most popular with its young readership. Miguel asked how he might get one of his stories reprinted in a glossy publication. One editor politely explained that magazines like hers do not reprint stories--they want original material--but Miguel was welcome to pitch a story to the magazine directly. If they liked his pitch, Miguel could write it on assignment.

Miguel looked at me with an exasperation I understood. We both knew that his writing an article independently would likely be impossible. Sure, Miguel was one of the star writers at Represent, but he was also one of the trickiest kids I'd worked with. Some of Miguel's stories took him eight months to write, and I spent much of that time coaching him through them. For every 10 minutes Miguel sat at his computer working, he spent 30 doing something he wasn't supposed to--interrupting the other teens at computers, arguing loudly on the phone with the staff at his group home, hopping outside for cigarette breaks. Miguel required constant nagging and attention. My boss often remarked that each teen-written story we developed cost the organization $2,500, when he included staff salaries, overhead, and equipment. By that estimation, I thought Miguel's stories must be twice as expensive. But they were worth it.

His personal narratives gave unusually intimate views of struggling with mental illness, homelessness, and life in the foster care system. He also wrote first-person stories about more topical issues, like struggling with obesity, or bullying, from the perspective of the bully. Some of his stories had been picked up by listservs or other alternative publications, but often it seemed unfortunate that his work didn't find a wider audience in the mainstream media.

I knew why. As the editor at the conference had said, mainstream glossies and most large newspapers rarely reprint stories. They want original work. It makes their publication look better, and it gives them more control over content. But traditional newsrooms are not set up to provide the ongoing support many young writers require. Unless the mainstream press rethinks their reprint policy, or considers collaborating with professionals already working with teens, it's unlikely that a voice like Miguel's will appear in the publications read by most of the country.

The last few months have brought a flurry of articles about print media's losing battle to attract young readers. Now is an opportune time for the mainstream press to explore how the radio industry, online publications, and some innovative local newspapers have already begun adding the youth voice to their usual fare.

While many news outlets are losing young audiences, the newspaper industry is doing so at an especially alarming clip. Less than a fifth of 18-to-34-year-olds rank newspapers as their primary source of news, a recent study by the Carnegie Corporation found, and 12% of the young people surveyed said they "never" read a paper to get news. More significant, the average age of newspaper readers is 53, according to the Los Angeles Times. Studies show that teens aren't uninterested in the world: 44% of young adults surveyed visited a web news portal every day, according to the Carnegie study, and another 44% of online Americans aged 18-29 read blogs often, the Economist reported in April. Young people who are used to blogging, podcasting, and citizen journalism--where just about everyone is a potential reporter--"don't want to rely on a god-like figure from above to tell them what's important."