The Gannett Blog reports that the owner of the Pensacola News Journal has Gannett Newspaper Division Print Task Force that has concluded Print’s future is all about local news and baby boomers.
Newspaper division chief Sue Clark-Johnson sent the report to publishers in the last month or so. The task force concluded that boomers are the ones “most inclined to be regular newspaper readers.” And while Gannett still values the under-40 crowd, “we need to be realistic about the print platform. The primary audience of readers is over the age of 40 now, and that will not change.”
Here are the first two recommendations of the report:
* “Hard news and local news remain our greatest strength and are Boomers’ top news priorities; therefore, they should be ours. If editors must cut content, hard news and local news should remain untouched.”
* “Our watchdog role is perceived as central to our responsibility as a local newspaper. We must find a way to strengthen our watchdog reporting efforts.”
This may explain PNJ’s investigative reports on air emissions and Jim Paul’s travel. More investigative reporting is good for all of us….it will keep us on our toes.
