The kids don't even know what they are

[UNCGrad]

And so I survived career day at my daughter's elementary school today. But when I asked 4th-graders how most people found out news about their favorite teams, newspapers were either the last things on their minds, or not on their minds at all. I had to bring them up to two of the four classes.

I'm out of newspapers now (SID gig), and I know this isn't news, but it still saddens me.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

Dad, what does clockwise mean?

 

[JimmyHoward33]

They're in fourth grade!! When I was in fourht grade, I got news about my favorite teams from my dad. Obviously less people are talking newspapers these days but I wouldn't read too much into a bunch of fourth graders.

 

[UNCGrad]

Fourth grade, huh? Fourth grade is a lot different than when we were in fourth grade. I got, without prompting from each class, answers that included TV and the web, including specific websites, none of which were newspaper sites. They were either espn.com or TV news websites; and they all needed little instruction on how Facebook and Twitter reaches "people who might be interested in Poduck U's sports". Every time. I was asked how many hits our coaches' Q&A videos get on YouTube.

Clearly, news dissemination isn't going anywhere. That's understood. Baseball might be dying in popularity, but kids still play Little League. Kids don't even know what newspapers are.

Me: "How did you find out whether Carolina won last night?"
Kid: "I looked it up on TarHeelBlue.com this morning."

 

[fishwrapper]

My fourth grader was issued a PC notebook at the beginning of the year that is connected to a class WiFi. It is on her desk the entire day. One of her subjects she is graded on -- along with math and language arts -- is "Digital and Technology Skills."
I think it would be naive to think when she is in eighth grade she will discover newspapers.

 

[Stitch]

My fourth grader was issued a PC notebook at the beginning of the year that is connected to a class WiFi. It is on her desk the entire day. One of her subjects she is graded on -- along with math and language arts -- is "Digital and Technology Skills."
I think it would be naive to think when she is in eighth grade she will discover newspapers.

I would think it would be naive she would even want to pick up a newspaper. In a digital world, you can't base your business on someone holding a bunch of paper. Newspapers will be the niche product when the fourth graders are raising families.

 

[mustangj17]

Fourth grade, huh? Fourth grade is a lot different than when we were in fourth grade. I got, without prompting from each class, answers that included TV and the web, including specific websites, none of which were newspaper sites. They were either espn.com or TV news websites; and they all needed little instruction on how Facebook and Twitter reaches "people who might be interested in Poduck U's sports". Every time. I was asked how many hits our coaches' Q&A videos get on YouTube.

Clearly, news dissemination isn't going anywhere. That's understood. Baseball might be dying in popularity, but kids still play Little League. Kids don't even know what newspapers are.

Me: "How did you find out whether Carolina won last night?"
Kid: "I looked it up on TarHeelBlue.com this morning."

How awesome is that though? I remember I had to sit and watch the scroll at the bottom of CNN Headline News because they were the only channel to have all the sports scores. Even Michigan vs. Prairie View A&M. Like clockwork, when the score was about to come up, CNN would go to commercial. By the time it came back they would be on NHL games. It was so frustrating.

 

[SixToe]

Our 10-year old son asked whether his favorite baseball team won the previous night's game.

"Let's check the Sports section," which I had in my hand.

"Naa, I'll just look on my iTouch," he said, and declined to even look at the paper even as I pointed to the game recap.

The only time they look at a newspaper is when it's required for school work for a "current event." Even then, they print something off the laptop (only because a printed page is required).

 

[I Should Coco]

Ah, this internet thing is just a fad ... let's move on to more important matters, like how we should organize our annual Progress section.

 

[RickStain]

Fourth grade, huh? Fourth grade is a lot different than when we were in fourth grade. I got, without prompting from each class, answers that included TV and the web, including specific websites, none of which were newspaper sites. They were either espn.com or TV news websites; and they all needed little instruction on how Facebook and Twitter reaches "people who might be interested in Poduck U's sports". Every time. I was asked how many hits our coaches' Q&A videos get on YouTube.

Clearly, news dissemination isn't going anywhere. That's understood. Baseball might be dying in popularity, but kids still play Little League. Kids don't even know what newspapers are.

Me: "How did you find out whether Carolina won last night?"
Kid: "I looked it up on TarHeelBlue.com this morning."

How awesome is that though? I remember I had to sit and watch the scroll at the bottom of CNN Headline News because they were the only channel to have all the sports scores. Even Michigan vs. Prairie View A&M. Like clockwork, when the score was about to come up, CNN would go to commercial. By the time it came back they would be on NHL games. It was so frustrating.

That's funny, because I remember having to sit through a thousand college games I didn't care about waiting to get to the NHL, only to have it go to a commercial right as they got to it every single time.

 

[Dan Hickling]

When I was in the fourth grade, I did read the newspaper ... that was back when the Sunday comics section featured cigarette ads ... also carried around an Almanac, too ... what a looser I was

 

[fishwrapper]

My fourth grader was issued a PC notebook at the beginning of the year that is connected to a class WiFi. It is on her desk the entire day. One of her subjects she is graded on -- along with math and language arts -- is "Digital and Technology Skills."
I think it would be naive to think when she is in eighth grade she will discover newspapers.

I would think it would be naive she would even want to pick up a newspaper. In a digital world, you can't base your business on someone holding a bunch of paper. Newspapers will be the niche product when the fourth graders are raising families.

It's not like she hasn't had the opportunity. She's a bright kid, never gets anything below an "A" or an "O." Every day of her life, there have been as many as three papers hit the driveway. The newspaper doesn't grab her when she can find what interests her in four seconds on an iTouch or DSi. I realize some of the technology is narrowing the education, but it's difficult to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Especially with peer influence.
But, even I consume news differently. We all do.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I remember my sophomore year of high school (late '80s), in my Intro to Business class, we were given something like $1,000 in pretend money to put in the stock market.

Each week, we'd have to bring in the stock tables from the most recent paper, and my dad would get POed because he wouldn't have the business section.

I ended up making the most money, and got a prize of a couple of bonus points on my grade for the class that quarter.

While everyone else either lost money, or made a couple hundred bucks tops, I made over $2K. I put my pretend $1,000 on Gulf & Western stock, figuring that since they owned the Knicks, Rangers and MSG, that they were a pretty prosperous company to invest in.

 

[Point of Order]

Kids also on't know why we call a particular golf club a 3-wood. Newspapers will be like that soon. They'll know what a newspaper is; they just won't have any idea why "paper" is in its name.

 

[NightHawk112005]

I had the opposite thing happen with a high school coach today. This coach is relatively young, probably in his 30's, and is fantastic at calling in his games. After I covered his game today, he told me he always calls us and never calls the television stations because he doesn't care one way or the other if his team is on television, but he wants his girls to always be in the newspaper when they have a game. That was pretty cool.

As for this, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Most kids don't read much at that age no matter what generation they were. I was an exception, starting my morning with the Washington Post from when I was eight, but most kids aren't like that. As they grow up, they're more willing to read.

 

[flexmaster33]

I've been sitting down with the sports section and breakfast every morning since about 4th grade...still remember some of my favorite writers from back in that period...Oregon kid, so it was Terry Frei and George Pasaro.

 

[fishwrapper]

The reminiscing, though lovely, isn't the point...
I too, read.
I also used to go to a bookstore to buy a novel.
I also used to go to Blockbuster to rent a VHS.
Also, old habits of mine my kids wouldn't think to do.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

The weird thing is, since I do both, is that it is demonstrably more time-consuming to look up all the scores you want on the Internet than to just read the damn paper -- especially as sports Web sites get crammed with more advertising software that gum up their works. Using ESPN.com can be torture.
This applies to newspaper Web sites, too. The Washington Post site simply doesn't function on my day job PC, and slows my home PC to a crawl.

 

[NightHawk112005]

The reminiscing, though lovely, isn't the point...
I too, read.
I also used to go to a bookstore to buy a novel.
I also used to go to Blockbuster to rent a VHS.
Also, old habits of mine my kids wouldn't think to do.

I'm 23, have done all of those and the only reason I stopped renting movies is I found that it's cheaper to buy them used. But I still go to bookstores to buy books, as do all of my siblings. I'm sure we're not the only ones.

 

[rpmmutant]

I was teaching in a fourth grade class for two months. I have been subbing and freelancing for the past couple of years. The fourth graders had no interest in the stories I wrote for newspapers. They couldn't relate. They don't see their friends reading newspapers, their parents reading, their family members reading. Not reading newspapers is a trend that started with the previous generation. Newspapers are 20 years behind in trying to figure out how to become relevant again.
But when I showed the fourth graders my stories on ESPN.com, all of a sudden that was impressive. I'm not sure if they were more impressed that their teacher was on ESPN or that I was writing for a website they all had heard of.
In any event, kids don't know what newspapers are. Their parents have no interest in newspapers. It makes for a bad combination for the future of newspapers. But the Internet is alive and well, and still not financially viable.