It’s not 1975 anymore

(Why newspaper readers don’t behave like they used to)

In 1975...

The only voice I heard on the radio in the morning was Merv Smith on 1ZB

If we wanted to sell something we advertised it in the paper on Saturday morning

We watched the 6pm TV news, read by Dougal Stevenson or Philip Sherry

Google earth

“An individual with a PC has themself as much information as an entire government

department would have been able to access 30 years ago.”

George Osborne, shadow chancellor, UK, talking at Telegraph Media Group event earlier this year

& and internet connection

>

• NY Times

77pc check email every day

28pc use social networks eg Bebo, Facebook

13pc maintain their own website

10pc blog

AUT University research (1430 people interviewed)

Google Reader = an RSS aggregator (aka a feed reader)

• Newspaper readers don’t behave the way they did in 1975.

• Nor should newspaper publishers ( or TV, radio companies)

• Nor should journalism educators

What does this all mean for journalists?

Write blogs as well as stories

Video – front news pieces or video events & edit packages

Create slide shows

+ Polls + Podcasts + Record press conferences

What does this all mean for journalism educators?

Teach the fundamentals of journalism – fairness, accuracy, balance, how to get to the point etc

• Give students experience working with audio, images & video

• Help them get comfortable online – file types, uploading, writing for the web, conversations

• Give them some useful tools such as feed readers and social bookmarking sites

Thank youStephen’s up next