Catering to the young and the old, in an effort to forge lasting bonds
It is interesting to read on the
NiemanLab website that The New York Times (NYT) is taking its expertise and access to the classroom. The
article by Ricardo Bilton says “the dual challenges of sinking print readership
and contracting digital ad revenue are forcing legacy publishers to ponder new
ways of making money”. NYT seems to have found a new way by opening a summer
camp. Bilton says a few hundred high school students will spend a couple of
weeks at the NYC Summar Academy this summer to get through “a set of courses
designed to give students a comprehensive, cross-sectional look at some of the
big areas within the Times’ wheelhouse”. Some of the courses offered include
Sports Management and Media, Writing for Television: Inside the Writers’ Room,
and The Future of Fashion.
Newspapers
in India and indeed across the world have over the past several years been
trying hard to attract young readers. Now, this
initiative by NYT seems a sensible thing to do and newspaper publishing
houses in India should consider offering similar courses for students. The idea
is not just to earn extra income. Bilton quotes Raymond Ravaglia, director of
the precollege division at The School of NYT: “The goal here is to get the
students out of the classroom and into the intersection of ideas and careers.
They spend a lot of their time studying and getting new ideas, but they don’t
have a sense of how these ideas get operationalised in the world in terms of
careers.” How true!
Such
exercises must give students an opportunity to focus on the community, the
neighbourhood, the city they live in. And you never know – from such exercises
may dawn a student’s love for heritage or civic issues or sport or food, or
even Journalism. Bilton says NYT charges nearly $4000 for the two-week summer
course and that the cost has not discouraged students from signing up. By
Indian middle-class standards, this is pretty expensive. I am sure media houses
here can work out a reasonable fee. What’s also important is to get their
reporters associated with the programme. We have students applying to intern in
newspaper offices, but newspapers taking the initiative to draw students is
quite different. It’s indeed a welcome step by NYT. Nothing like providing
young and impressionable minds a true experience of what it is like working in
a news publishing house.
We have
all heard about newspapers reaching out to young readers, but here is something
remarkably different. Writing for the Columbia
Journalism Review,its contributing editor Trudy Lieberman explains why one
local paper launched an online section for older readers. The new effort from
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, she says, is a little unusual: it’s
aimed directly at older audiences. In April this
year, the paper launched Aging Edge, a section of its website dedicated to the
interests and concerns of the area’s “older adults, their familiesand the professionals who deal with
them”. The idea, according to Lieberman, came from Gary Rotstein, a veteran Post-Gazette journalist, the objective being to
cater to a region that has a high proportion of the elderly. Some of the
subjects covered include ‘staying healthy’, ‘aging at home’, and ‘preparing for
the end’. The reporting, again, is more localized and community-driven. Yet
another example worth replicating here in India.
Newspapers
in India and indeed across the world have over the past several years been
trying hard to attract young readers. Now, this
initiative by NYT seems a sensible thing to do and newspaper publishing
houses in India should consider offering similar courses for students. The idea
is not just to earn extra income. Bilton quotes Raymond Ravaglia, director of
the precollege division at The School of NYT: “The goal here is to get the
students out of the classroom and into the intersection of ideas and careers.
They spend a lot of their time studying and getting new ideas, but they don’t
have a sense of how these ideas get operationalised in the world in terms of
careers.” How true!
Such
exercises must give students an opportunity to focus on the community, the
neighbourhood, the city they live in. And you never know – from such exercises
may dawn a student’s love for heritage or civic issues or sport or food, or
even Journalism. Bilton says NYT charges nearly $4000 for the two-week summer
course and that the cost has not discouraged students from signing up. By
Indian middle-class standards, this is pretty expensive. I am sure media houses
here can work out a reasonable fee. What’s also important is to get their
reporters associated with the programme. We have students applying to intern in
newspaper offices, but newspapers taking the initiative to draw students is
quite different. It’s indeed a welcome step by NYT. Nothing like providing
young and impressionable minds a true experience of what it is like working in
a news publishing house.
We have
all heard about newspapers reaching out to young readers, but here is something
remarkably different. Writing for the Columbia
Journalism Review,its contributing editor Trudy Lieberman explains why one
local paper launched an online section for older readers. The new effort from
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, she says, is a little unusual: it’s
aimed directly at older audiences. In April this
year, the paper launched Aging Edge, a section of its website dedicated to the
interests and concerns of the area’s “older adults, their familiesand the professionals who deal with
them”. The idea, according to Lieberman, came from Gary Rotstein, a veteran Post-Gazette journalist, the objective being to
cater to a region that has a high proportion of the elderly. Some of the
subjects covered include ‘staying healthy’, ‘aging at home’, and ‘preparing for
the end’. The reporting, again, is more localized and community-driven. Yet
another example worth replicating here in India.
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