PressEthic

The Associated Press announced recently that they will be targeting the elusive 18-34 year old demographic with their launch of "AP ASAP." There's little doubt that the news company has the right idea, as anyone under 30 (and not in a journalism graduate school program) is as accepting of the newspaper as they are shuffleboard. But the manner in which they're attempting to capture the audience has raised some eyebrows, specifically Simon Dumenco's of Advertising Age:

OK, remember when, on The Simpsons, the character Poochie was added to “The Itchy & Scratchy Show” to shore up sagging ratings? He was a beagle with attitude -- a Ray-Ban-wearing pup with a surfboard who could skateboard and play basketball at the same time, and he said stuff like, “Catch you on the flip side, dude-meisters!” Young people hated him.

ASAP will incorporate all the new innovations that differentiate the media consumption habits of young people -- using blogs, personal essays, less stiff language, etc. While a part of me feels like it's a lame attempt to make something hip that will never be, I don't blame the AP (and other organizations> according to the Hartford Courant) for adapting to the new media environment. As much as I, personally, enjoy sitting down and reading the Times for three hours on a Sunday, apparently I'm in the vast minority in my age group. It's easy for media critics to bemoan the lack of principles that come with catering so obviously to an age group that has limited interest in the product, but what's the alternative? If they don't adapt and figure out a way to appeal to young people, the newspaper will surely die. Though is makes me queasy, the following sentiment appears to be spot-on:

"No reader is clamoring for longer stories. They want to get in and out quick. But what newsrooms value is not what readers value," said Alan Jacobson, chief executive of BrassTacks Design, a newspaper design consultancy. "A hundred-column-inch story about the white rhino is not what sells the paper on Sunday. ... Newspapers don't want to hear that, but it's true."