Goldring Arts Journalism

Tabloid fever
Newspapers lure young readers with flashy new publications but what about the arts?

By Bob Lloyd

In Milwaukee, the Journal Sentinel has gone tabloid. MKE, the paper's new publication and Web site aimed at twenty- and thirtysomethings, launched in late October. The focus of this new venture: entertainment and lifestyle.

In Nashville this month, the Tennessean began printing a new section for Generation Y called All the Rage, banking on the newspaper's tradition of heavy entertainment coverage to help attract younger readers.

In Rochester, N.Y., the Democrat and Chronicle started Insider last February, part of Gannett Newspapers' drive to lure readers in their 20s and 30s to its pages. The new tabloid uses both arts and lifestyle as its sirens.

At newspapers across the country, editors have discovered that the way to younger readers hearts is through their music, movies and lifestyles.

Papers are creating new tabloid sections in a blatant push to attract readers who long have turned their backs on the more established daily editions. These new sections seek an audience that wants to know what to do with its free time. Editors believe these readers need a publication to help them navigate through the shoals of early adulthood.

"The most basic reason is to reach an audience that the daily newspapers are struggling to reach," said Diane Bacha, assistant managing editor for new initiatives and readership growth at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I truly believe there's no substitute for the daily paper, but many in this audience just are not reading it now. … A niche publication that just focuses on a certain age group gives us the opportunity to try different things."

One of those different approaches is a tabloid-sized publication full of useful ideas for a generation looking for things to do. Often, the new tabloids cost readers nothing. They appear separate from their parent publications.

In fact, many weeklies try to distance themselves from the dailies.

"Young readers of this age group first of all want a free publication," Bacha said. "So that they would find it useful, you have to give them information about how they can use their free time."

Stories about fitness and food fill many pages of the new tabloids. But entertainment and arts coverage gets equal billing.

In Nashville, the forerunner for All the Rage was a pocket-sized, free publication that relied solely on entertainment stories and a rundown of events. Those listings and news attracted a younger crowd: One in four residents of Nashville's metropolitan area is between 18 and 34 years old. Editors there have chosen to build on that foundation.

"There's lots of folks that will say that calendar listings are the bedrock of gaining young readers, but I tend to think of age as being just one parameter," said Pat Embry, general manager and editor of the Tennessean's new tabloid. "You're really talking about a lifestyle issue here.

"Common sense will tell you that the older you get, (you become) more established and with jobs and changing tastes and what not. You're more likely to go out on the town, eating, drinking and making merry, the younger you are."

Gannett has begun printing eight new tabloids around the country, targeting medium-size markets such as Nashville, Cincinnati and Boise, Idaho. More are on the way.

In Rochester, also home to a Gannett newspaper, editors found that the daily paper attracted older readers, and though the alternative weeklies at one time boasted younger audiences, their readers had aged as the publications did.

Looking at the market, said Mike Johansson, editor of the Insider, there was an underserved audience. "It seemed to us there was an audience out there under 34 that did not have a publication geared to them."

For Johansson, the decision to fill at least half of his publication with coverage of the arts seemed a matter of mirroring his market: Rochester enjoys the reputation of being an arts-related community. But despite that reputation, Johansson said the area's young people are moving away, complaining that the city lacks enough entertainment.

"One of the reasons they often cite is there's not enough to do. … It turns out there's a lot to do. Our job is to dispel that myth," he said.

In Milwaukee, Bacha and others used research from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University to spur their concepts. They created MKE, aviation shorthand for Milwaukee's airport. With the slogan "Move forward, Kick back, Explore," MKE launched the Thursday before Halloween. Entertainment and lifestyle news split evenly in its first edition. That decision came in part because of the paper's research and focus groups.

"Even mothers with no free time were excited about discovering something to do with their limited free time that involved their children or spouse," Bacha said.

She said she looked at several of the new tabloids before working out her approach. She discovered that giving those 20- and 30-year-olds a guide for their time outside of work ran common through each publication.

"Seeing the underlying currents, among them is this basic idea that here's this younger generation with a lot going on in their lives and who need help navigating their busy lives," she said.

The new publications carry more in common than just content. Their chief editors might be able to remember Jimmy Carter as president, but their staffs are stocked with reporters and editors from Generation Y.

"You need young people writing about young people, speaking in their voice, understanding what they want to hear," said Bacha, whose oldest staff member is just barely past 30.

Johansson, who is in his early 40s, said he is the oldest person on his staff. He hired younger reporters from a nationwide search chiefly because that's who applied. He believes, though, that their understanding of the generation makes the Insider stronger and more attractive to its readers.

Once, he and his editors were discussing story ideas. Someone came up with an idea that Johansson found old hat. He nearly said something that would have killed the story. But the group batted the idea around. They found it new, and interesting to them. Therefore, Johansson said, the story would be interesting to people the same age, and, he hoped, attract a group of readers who at the moment are not reading his paper.

"If we don't have 20- or 30-year-olds working you lose a perspective," he said. You lose … a heartfelt insight into an audience."

Bob Lloyd is chair of the undergraduate magazine department and director of the magazine, newspaper and online graduate program at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. He has worked as a reporter and editor for more than 20 years, including newsroom positions at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Syracuse Herald-Journal. He most recently was executive editor at the Erie Times-News in Pennsylvania.