Student newspapers are doing something right

While newspaper executives around the country wring their hands about declines in readership and rack their brains about how to bring in younger readers, student newspapers continue to thrive.

Perhaps the professionals should be looking to student papers for the answers.

In fact, some of them are.

In her blog, Run of Paper, this week, Jody Reese, publisher of a small group of free newspapers and magazines in Manchester, New Hampshire, writes about the success of college papers.

"Despite Facebook and Myspace, college kids still read their campus newspapers, in print," Reese writes. "What does it say about the death of newspapers that as many as 76 percent of college kids say they have read one of the last five issues of their college newspaper?" (The statistic comes from a 2006 report from Y2M: Youth Media & Market Networks and College Publisher that also found 44 percent of students read their college papers in print at least twice per week and 33 percent pick them up at least once per month. By comparison, only 28 percent of college students regularly read their community papers in print -- and even fewer read community papers online.)

"It says that nothing is wrong with the medium of the newsprint," Reese continues. "It should loudly remind newspaper companies that it's their poor content that is driving younger readers away for their products, not college students' lack of interest in civic affairs or the internets."

While I agree with Bryan Murley and the folks at the Center for Innovation in College Media that student newspapers need to beef up their Web sites and embrace new media, clearly college newspapers are doing something right in print.

For one thing, they're hyperlocal, just as Rob Curley of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, suggests all papers should be.

"There's no more local paper than a campus paper," Dina Pradel, general manager of Y2M, which founded College Publisher in 1999, told The Baltimore Sun last year.

Good student newspapers write about people, places and events at a college or university that are often ignored by mainstream media. The more college papers can stick to this philosophy, the more targeted the coverage, the more successful they will be.

More competition for college newspapers

News Flash:
Cox Ohio Publishing is launching a Web site for students at the region's college campuses, according to the Springfield News-Sun.

"We talked to hundreds of students and found out that there's no single place to find what's happening on and around campus," Katie Wedell, content producer for Swocol.com, told the Springfield, Ohio newspaper. The Web site is targeting students at the University of Dayton, Wright State University, Sinclair Community College and Miami University in Oxford.

But what does this mean for The Flyer News at the University of Dayton, The Guardian at Wright State University, The Clarion at Sinclair Community College and The Miami Student at Miami University in Oxford?

Competition.

Will Miami University students spend as much time reading The Miami Student when they've got another site to get youth-oriented news and information about the area? Will advertisers be as likely to buy ads in the individual college papers when they have a Web site targeting students at all four colleges in the region?

This comes just one year after Gannett bought the FSView and Florida Flambeau at Florida State University and MTV bought College Publisher.

Faced with declining readership and plummeting profits, professional media organizations are trying to invade our turf. Are we in college media going to stand by and let this happen? What's next? Is The New York Times going to buy the Washington Square News? Is The Boston Glove going to try to lure readers away from The Harvard Crimson?

Student newspapers are facing a kind of competition we've never seen before. To survive and thrive, we've got to produce publications that are more engaging, savvier, hipper, more in touch with our readers than we've ever been.

If I were at one of the college newspapers in the area, I'd beef up my Web site, boost coverage of local entertainment and write more service articles that help students navigate college life. On top of that, I'd try to strengthen local campus coverage. I'd start the semester with a pep talk to the staff, saying the competition is on.

We've got to show those professionals who's boss.

What advice do you have for the Ohio college newspapers? Post a comment.

For more about this topic read:
"College Papers Deliver," The Baltimore Sun

"Big Media on Campus," The Wall Street Journal