Recovering Journalist had an excellent summary of a surprising report from the Associated Press. It's shocking that such an organization, which has taken its fair share of grief from the online community over its aggressive DMCA claims, should have such insight into the future of online media and how to attract a younger, more tech-savvy audience.
The AP report, titled "A New Model for News," details findings from interviews and trend studies of 20-something Generation Y news connoisseurs. Some of the findings won't be a surprise to anyone (did you know young people don't read newspapers?), but the suggestions for new models of producing and distributing news to these young people are.
Without regurgitating the entire report, the models proposed are certainly things that could turn the news business around and prop up sagging newspapers. The problem, however, is that any and all of these tactics will probably work for driving audience share, but all of this free content that's forcing the change doesn't have a sustainable business model. It's all based on the former newspaper model, which was subscribers + news stand sales + ads. Without paid subscribers and news stand sales, there's a hole in the model they haven't filled yet.
The AP has suggested some potential avenues for growing a user base, but offers no suggestions for monetizing the content being produced and distributed. It's not enough to move to all these new models until there is a huge culture shift that includes reducing some of the staff bloat, moving news faster, and letting go of the traditional thought process that led the AP into the public relations issue with Drudge Retort. New models require new thought processes as well, and it isn't clear from the report that the AP is there yet.
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