People have debated for some time what is the average age of a daily newspaper reader in the U.S. Eric Alterman said it’s 55 in a 2008 piece in The New Yorker, and the consensus is in that range. Now Alan Mutter has run some Pew Research numbers and looks at the number another way.

Alan Mutter Chart

According to Pew, less than 10% of people under the age of 30 reported that they had read a newspaper the previous day. In comparison, nearly 50% of adults over 65 had done so. Seventy-four percent of U.S. newspaper readership is concentrated in people over the age of 45, while that age demographic group represents only 39% of the population. And that group is getting older and dying while the under-45s are not.

What do all the numbers mean? “The industry is failing to replace older readers with younger individuals,” Mutter writes. “At some point, the newspaper audience may contract so severely that (a) publishers cannot attract enough advertisers, (b) publishers no longer enjoy the economies of scale necessary to print profitably or (c) both of the above.”

Few advertisers want to reach people over the age of 50, and almost no one wants to reach 65-year-olds. People in that age group often live on fixed incomes, have no children at home and very modest spending needs. They buy very little. Yet this is the core audience newspaper publishers have to sell to their advertisers.

A few years ago, Golin Harris CEO Fred Cook quoted an unidentified Chicago Sun-Times columnist as saying, “Newspapers aren’t dying; our readers are.” Whether a columnist actually said that or not, it’s an apt summary of the problem all mainstream media face. Watch the 6 p.m. network evening news some evening and look at the ads. They’re for pharmaceuticals, insurance and erectile dysfunction aids. Those advertisers know who the audience is. In 2010, the average age of a regular evening news consumer was 53, according to Pew. Where is that audience in 20 years? Where will the advertisers be?

The news industry’s challenge is to find products that appeal to young readers, but that requires taking risks, which is not something news executives are wired to do. The one saving grace could be that a lot of news organizations have laid off expensive senior staff and replaced them with young reporters. Perhaps those people will bring forth the ideas that enable the industry to grow again.

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We were just added to the 100 Best Sites for Journalists in 2012 list put together by JournalismDegree.org. Yay. Seriously, thanks for the recognition, and thanks for pointing us to some useful sites we weren’t aware of. We’ll add them to our blogroll at the lower left, which you can add to your own RSS reader by clicking “subscribe.”

The point of this post isn’t to toot our own horn, though, but rather to point out why JournalismDegree.org undertakes this occasional exercise (they did it before in 2009). Lists like these are all about search engine optimization (SEO), and they’re a smart way to raise visibility quickly.

JournalismDegree.org is basically a lead generation site. It lists colleges and professional development providers that offer communications-related courses. When you click through to a listed institution, you’re taken to a page on eLearners.com, where you can fill out a form requesting more information. Sponsors pay eLearners.com for each inquiry that comes in this way, and eLearners.com pays affiliates like JournalismDegree.org a commission for referring the lead.

It’s a perfectly legitimate business. Those Amazon banners you see all over the Web (including on this site) are the same basic idea. Anyone who contributes to the sale gets a small cut of the revenue.

JournalismDegree.org – and many sites like it – are very dependent on search engine visibility. It wants to be the number one or two search result for “journalism degrees” on Google, and it’s been successful in that respect. A big reason is lists like the this one. A representative sent the owner of each site on the list a congratulatory e-mail with a snippet of HTML code that easily adds a badge to the site. The code includes the alt tag “Best Site for Journalists – 2012,” which basically tells Google that JournalismDegree.org is a great place for journalists to visit.

The strategy works. JournalismDegree.org is number seven in our search results on “best site for journalists” and will no doubt move higher as more sites display its badge. Which we just did (although we changed the alt tag to something more descriptive). The more reputable the sites displaying the badge, the better it is for JournalismDegree.org.

This is smart search marketing, and any blogger or news site can benefit from its example.  Half of the equation for search engine success is in factors that you control, such as domain name, page titles, headlines and keywords. JournalismDegree.org does all of these things well. The tough part is the other half, which is getting reputable sites to link to you. One quickly way to do that is to hand out awards like this one. At least a half dozen of the sites we visited are already displaying the logo above, and more will probably follow. Which all adds up to high-quality links that fuel search success.

There are flaws in JournalismDegree.org’s list. The numbering scheme implies a hierarchy, which we hope isn’t the case because there’s no way we deserve to rank higher than Neiman or Poynter. Several of the sites on the list haven’t been updated in months and one – EatSleepPublish – has been dormant for nearly two years. Still, there’s value in the list and a lot of time and thought was put into it. We’re flattered, even though we know what the publisher’s true agenda is.

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Back in May, the New Orleans Times-Picayune became the most recent major metro daily to reduce its print publishing schedule, going from seven to three days a week. The story must really be important, because now 60 Minutes has sent Morley Safer to cover it. Watch this Sunday, Jan. 6 on your local CBS affiliate at 7:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific times. We will.
Here’s the CBS promo blurb:

It’s a sure sign of the digital times when the New Orleans Times-Picayune, published every day for 175 years, goes to a three-day-a-week publishing schedule. As Morley Safer reports, it’s a fate many more newspapers face as the Internet becomes the source of almost instantaneous news. What does the Mayor of New Orleans think about this? See the clip below for a preview.

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Back in May, the New Orleans Times-Picayune became the most recent major metro daily to reduce its print publishing schedule, going from seven to three days a week. The story must really be important, because now 60 Minutes has sent Morley Safer to cover it. Watch this Sunday, Jan. 6 on your local CBS affiliate at 7:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific times. We will.

Here’s the CBS promo blurb:

It’s a sure sign of the digital times when the New Orleans Times-Picayune, published every day for 175 years, goes to a three-day-a-week publishing schedule. As Morley Safer reports, it’s a fate many more newspapers face as the Internet becomes the source of almost instantaneous news. What does the Mayor of New Orleans think about this? See the clip below for a preview.

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Media critics have been buzzing for more than a week about “Snow Fall,” John Branch’s feature in The New York Times about a tragic avalanche that claimed three skiers’ lives in the Tunnel Creek area of Washington state early last year. Some people say it‘s the future of journalism, and they’re right – in a way. A loud chorus of naysayers who point out that “Snow Fall” is just the Times showing off. They’re right, too.

What’s important isn’t whether this package – which doesn’t fit neatly into the category of article, video documentary or e-book – is a turning point, but rather its importance as an evolution in story-telling. There’s nothing revolutionary about the technology the Times used. It’s the way the elements were combined that makes “Snow Fall” a great experience.

For example, some of the graphics unfold as the reader scrolls down the screen, illustrating elements of the narrative in a way that feels seamless and natural. Embedded slide shows appear next to the names of key people in the tragedy, showing them in happier times. It’s a moving tribute to dead and their families that doesn’t seem heavy-handed or maudlin. It’s just part of the story.

Romenesko says the package racked up 3.5 million page views in its first week and that one-quarter of them were new visitors to nytimes.com. Ad Age complains that the ads the Times ran next to the copy nearly ruin the reading experience. Mathew Ingram superbly balances comments from both fans and critics. He concludes that, for all its elegance and beauty, “Snow Fall” still doesn’t address mainstream media’s frustrating fiscal woes. Laura Hazard Owen suggests that the “e-single” version of the feature – which sells for $2.99 – is an important endorsement of the growing mini-book concept.
We dropped by to see what all the fuss was about and ended spending an hour reading every last word and viewing every last video. “Snow Fall” is a visually stunning example of what a well-resourced news organization can produce when it spares practically no expense to break the mold. Few media companies can attempt something so ambitious (although there are some corporate marketing departments that could foot the bill). What’s important about “Snow Fall” is the ideas it introduces – ideas that will be adopted and iterated by other publishers on a smaller scale. We don’t think that’s showing off. It’s just being creative.

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Media critics have been buzzing for more than a week about “Snow Fall,” John Branch’s feature in The New York Times about a tragic avalanche that claimed three skiers’ lives in the Tunnel Creek area of Washington state early last year. Some people say it‘s the future of journalism, and they’re right – in a way. A loud chorus of naysayers who point out that “Snow Fall” is just the Times showing off. They’re right, too.

What’s important isn’t whether this package – which doesn’t fit neatly into the category of article, video documentary or e-book – is a turning point, but rather its importance as an evolution in story-telling. There’s nothing revolutionary about the technology the Times used. It’s the way the elements were combined that makes “Snow Fall” a great experience.

For example, some of the graphics unfold as the reader scrolls down the screen, illustrating elements of the narrative in a way that feels seamless and natural. Embedded slide shows appear next to the names of key people in the tragedy, showing them in happier times. It’s a moving tribute to dead and their families that doesn’t seem heavy-handed or maudlin. It’s just part of the story.

Romenesko says the package racked up 3.5 million page views in its first week and that one-quarter of them were new visitors to nytimes.com. Ad Age complains that the ads the Times ran next to the copy nearly ruin the reading experience. Mathew Ingram superbly balances comments from both fans and critics. He concludes that, for all its elegance and beauty, “Snow Fall” still doesn’t address mainstream media’s frustrating fiscal woes. Laura Hazard Owen suggests that the “e-single” version of the feature – which sells for $2.99 – is an important endorsement of the growing mini-book concept.

We dropped by to see what all the fuss was about and ended spending an hour reading every last word and viewing every last video. “Snow Fall” is a visually stunning example of what a well-resourced news organization can produce when it spares practically no expense to break the mold. Few media companies can attempt something so ambitious (although there are some corporate marketing departments that could foot the bill). What’s important about “Snow Fall” is the ideas it introduces – ideas that will be adopted and iterated by other publishers on a smaller scale. We don’t think that’s showing off. It’s just being creative.

Related articles

• The good – and the bad – about the NYT’s Snow Fall feature
• More than 3.5 million page views for New York Times’ ‘Snow Fall’ feature
• Snow Fall: Finally an articulation for the digerati of what a big, expensive newsroom can do (Sarah Lacy/PandoDaily)
• What the New York Times’s ‘Snow Fall’ Means to Online Journalism’s Future
• Expect ‘Snow Fall’ To Be The First Of Many Online News Experiments