Several daily newspapers are planning to target youth with new publications aimed at 18-to-34-year-olds, but will they succeed? Editor & Publisher offers pro and con views: an unsigned editorial from this week's issue suggests why "da chainz" just might succeed; and E&P intern Chris Nammour argues that you can't teach a young dog old tricks.
The Chicago Sun-Times has plans to launch a new tabloid aimed at younger readers, perhaps by early November, Crain's Chicago Business reports. That's about the same time as its rival, the Chicago Tribune, will debut its own tab for the 18- to 34-year-old reader, which will be called RedEye. The Sun-Times' parent, Hollinger International, has ordered four of its regional newspapers to send three staffers each to Chicago to put together the new tab.
A new Chicago Tribune tabloid aimed at younger readers could launch by the end of the month, Trib columnist Jim Kirk writes. The newsstand-only tab has a working title of "RedEye" and will feature a combination of entertainment writing and listings as well as shorter news stories than the broadsheet daily, Kirk writes.
Can Gannett Co. create alternatives to itself? Burl Gilyard, himself a former alt-weekly staff writer, looks into Gannett's plans to launch entertainment weeklies in Lansing, Mich., and Boise, Idaho, for AJR. Berl Schwartz, editor of the alt-weekly City Pulse in Lansing, says Gannett's targeting these small markets because it "wants to feed on the guppies before it heads to the deeper waters."
E&P's Lucia Moses looks at a batch of new daily-owned youth market publications in the works, from Gannett in Lansing, Mich., and Boise, Idaho, and from the Tribune Co., in Chicago and on Long Island. Reaching young readers is a delicate art, as alternative weeklies can attest. "The 'new generation' is newly minted every year," Chicago Newcity President Brian Hieggelke tells E&P. "Those of us who are writing about them ... the older we get, the less we should trust our instincts."
Taking a page from Gannett, the Chicago Tribune is seriously considering launching a five-day-a-week tabloid aimed at the elusive 18- to 34-year-old urban reader, the Tribune's Jim Kirk reports. "The new Tribune paper would be aimed at the same demographic that has made the city's free alternative papers, such as the Reader and New City, successful," Kirk writes. Gannett is launching "alternative" weeklies in target markets.
Media giant Gannett Co. is launching its first salvo in a war to win the elusive 25-to-34 year old reader away from alternative newsweeklies. In Lansing, Mich., and Boise, Idaho, Gannett dailies are set to begin publishing "alternative" weeklies this fall. Established alts in those markets are bracing for the ruthless competition described by Richard McCord in his book "Chain Gang." Berl Schwartz, publisher of City Pulse in Lansing, scoffs at the notion the Gannett weekly will be an edgy alternative publication. "What is it an alternative to?" he asks. "Itself?"
"Can you trust an alternative newspaper over 30?" Creative Loafing Atlanta's Senior Editor John Sugg asks. Well, yes and no. In a column published in Weekly Planet Tampa, Sugg's old stomping ground, he says alt-weeklies may be greying and corporate but they're still kicking the dailies' butts. Mainstream media have "dumbed themselves down to the point of imbecility," Sugg says. "Maybe now the alternative press will stand and achieve its true greatness, revealing what the powerful don't want revealed." If they don't, Sugg's hoping some firebrand now in high school is waiting in the wings to create the next underground press.
