When you say “the more blue collar folks of the world still read newspapers,” where are you getting that information? There has been extensive research on the demographics of newspaper readers — this is an area that has been extremely well documented. The research does not bear out your claim. Where did you find that information?

The more blue collar folks of the world still read news papers. They get them on their rides to work, bring them home and then the kids leaf through them. My dad always brought home a USA Today when I was a kid (I am pushing 30 now) and I went straight to sports section. I had a Sports Illustrated subscription between the ages of 21-27 (and will get it back in due time). The point is, there is a place for the old news, just not for the sons of rich sport franchise owners who helped invent the the inroads to the current model of internet communication.

That being said, there is a place for the Zach’s of the world. After all, rich kids are a great target demographic. Give him what he wants and make him pay for it. The teeming masses of the world may have to go with slimmed down newspapers or go browse online, but there is money to be made in niche services for people willing to pay for them. My guess is that Zach is just that type of person.

Glad to hear that you do read, and my guess is that you and your friends read literature rather than action-thrillers or other crap that provide zero insight into life. Some young people do read high quality fiction and non-fiction like you and your friends, but most, I have observed, prefer to live out their lives on the Internet, and on the rare occasions when they do pick up a book, it tends to have the intellectual heft of a video game about warfighters. Glad to hear you and your pals aren’t like that.

When I was kid and turned on a TV, I had a grandparent telling me how they never watched a television until they were in their 40s. When I was a kid, you played outside all day every day of the summer. In 2009, I have a hard time getting my two sports-playing nephews to leave the couch to go play catch outside or shoot hoops. They would rather play Wii or Game Boy or Rock Band or play online computer games. And I dare try to turn the TV to a sporting event while they are watching Selena Gomez or Miley Cyrus on the Disney Channel, I better be ready to run.

One thing those two boys NEVER want to do is read. They are part of the culture young-person culture that finds reading boring. The teens and college kids of today like to text and IM, not sit and read 15 chapters of a baseball book in a single day. Heck, I worked at a newspaper where nearly all the co-workers used to rag on our own product and talk about how nobody would read it.

If the people working at a newspaper don’t find it readable, why would the young people of today?

Newspapers missed the boat a long time ago in terms of engaging young people. The publishers and editors can await on shore forever waiting for the boat’s return but it’s not coming back to the dock.

That boat sank a long time ago.

My wife and I flip right past the Paris Hilton crapola. We and those like us want analysis, thoughtful commentary, investigative reporting and humor. Sacrificing any or all of that to reach teenagers and 20-somethings only will hasten our demise because even intelligent kids are too freakin’ distracted to spend much (if any) time reading papers.

My kids, 23 and 22, are above-average intelligence, highly educated young adults whose old man is a newspaper hack. They grew up reading newspapers. Yet neither will spend even 5 minutes with a newspaper now. And when they go online, as earlier posters noted, they aren’t searching out real news that actually can inform them. They want to know who’s shtumping whom or see goofy videos or whathaveyou.

So I do get frustrated by some of these “solutions” to making newspapers relevant to kids. Not that I have any solutions of my own. I guess my main point would be to put out the very best product every day, one full of information and insight, and hope to keep as many readers engaged for as many years as possible. And that goes for the online product, too.

Fact is, both Ted Leonsis and Dave Kindred to the response of a clearly spoiled child who doesn’t even sound like he is interested in sports to indict an entire generation.

As far as newspapers, no, at the age of 21 I do not read them. In fact, I tend to avoid mainstream media, since it’s no longer about news and is about selling. Many people my age realize this too, maybe it makes us cynical. I think it just makes us look to other sources than newspapers owned by conglomerates for news, info, and analysis.

Sorry Dave, there is no “revolutionary train.” The belief that if information is made relevant, young people will read it, is as much an illusion in the online world as it is in print.

Writing of substance is disappearing from our culture. This is the world we live in now, and we’ll all have to get used to it.