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Experts and Gen Z share their perspectives on addressing news avoidance, offering strategies to combat this growing trend. By understanding the reasons behind news avoidance and exploring effective solutions, they provide valuable insights into how to stay informed despite the challenges of an overwhelming media environment. This discussion highlights the importance of balanced news consumption and the role of both individuals and media outlets in promoting a well-informed society.
Boston Brand Media brings you the news on GenZ - On June 14, 2024, Will Lewis, CEO of the Washington Post, informed staff about plans to establish a third newsroom, explaining, “Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your content.” News avoidance is a worldwide challenge for newsrooms. What solutions are available to address this issue?
The Post’s British CEO, Will Lewis, who took on the role in January, reportedly told staff last Monday, “I’m not interested in managing decline. I’m interested in growth,” according to a meeting recording. “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your content.”
Amalie Kestler, Managing Editor in Chief of Politiken in Denmark, said during a session on news avoidance at WAN-IFRA’s 75th World News Media Congress in Copenhagen, “It is getting harder to sell journalism. The market has changed. Our competitors are not only the other paper down the street.”
She added, “As journalists and media professionals, we face the challenge of capturing the attention of those who actively avoid the very news that we work so hard to produce.”
The reasons for this issue became clearer as experts and Gen Z’ers shared their experiences, insights, and much-needed guidance on how to counter apathy and avoidance.
Dr. Ruth Palmer, co-author of Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism along with Benjamin Toff and fellow panelist Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, shared findings from their comprehensive, four-year study on the causes and effects of news avoidance.
“Our method focuses on the news avoiders themselves and their experiences with news, rather than on news producers or the content itself,” she clarified.
She emphasized that their main conclusion, which forms the core argument of their book, is that “News content is important, but so are these three I’s: our identities—who we are and what we believe, our ideologies, and the infrastructures we use to access information. Together, these three factors act as a filter shaping our relationship with news.”
Boston Brand Media also found that - Palmer, an associate professor of communication and digital media at IE University in Spain, emphasized that news avoidance is rising. She stated, “Because news avoidance and possibly other indicators of the weakening social contract between news and the public are only partly about content, the solution cannot simply be to produce more content.”
Meeting audience needs – where audiences are, from an audience perspective
According to Avoiding the News, consistent news avoiders are often found among socially and politically disadvantaged groups, including women, younger people, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
Co-author Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in the UK, who will join the University of Copenhagen as a Professor in the Department of Communication in October, highlights the importance of recognizing that “much of the news does not genuinely attempt to represent or reflect gender, class, religion, and age.”
He emphasized, “We learned what it means to meet people where they are. The mobile phone is a remote control to life. If journalists want to serve the public and reach them, they must be on the platforms where people spend their time; more than half the public is not visiting your site or apps.”
Nielsen added, “To empower people with knowledge, you must start with what they want to do – it has to begin from their perspective, not yours.”
Findings from a recent Pew Research Center study on How Americans Get News on TikTok, X, Facebook, and Instagram, released this week, illustrate how people obtain news from different sources across various platforms:
“News consumers on TikTok are more likely than those on other sites to get news from influencers or celebrities, while those on Facebook and Instagram are more likely to get it from family, friends, and acquaintances.”
1 Respond to how news feels to people, which in a lot of cases is not good.
2 Take communities and identities seriously
3 Package content for consistent news avoiders.
4 Communicate the role of journalism through news media literacy, and
5 Reaffirm editorial values and professional standards, which consistent news avoiders do not generally appreciate; they don’t see a big difference between news and the other information that’s out there.
Students from the International People’s College in Elsinore, Denmark, who participated in a Global Youth News Lab workshop and presented 7 Global Youth News Values at the World News Media Congress session, shared their news preferences, offering valuable insights for news leaders aiming to engage younger audiences.
Haruka Kobayashi from the United Kingdom expressed a desire for G•local news – news that links local and global issues. “We are an increasingly connected generation, both digitally and through travel, and we do care. The world is interconnected, and we actively engage in local politics, but it’s crucial to understand how local events impact the bigger picture and why they matter.”
She added, “Traditional news media is doing a great job but needs to emphasize the value of proximity – and recognize that few of us watch TV; most of us are on mobile platforms.”
Lilly Anuk Bosse from Germany had a strong connection to daily news growing up, which waned during her teens. “Now, I’ve been trying to reconnect, but it is different and difficult. Traditional news seems a little boring and not as suited to our attention span and pace of life as social media, which is fast, with big pictures and little info.”
She added, “We’d like to see more human stories. News always features the same people – white, or men, or both. We don’t really need celebrities in the news since we can access their feeds; it’s important to spotlight others who are unknown and unheard.”
Miko Nerviol from the Philippines wants news that empowers.
“The biggest barrier to news is that there’s too much of it. It feels numbing to read the news these days, as it seems to be the same thing repeatedly – another flood, another shooting, another death. It’s depressing. You could use more uplifting stories, focusing on positive activity and solutions.”
The Copenhagen Criteria is an updated set of news values defined by a group of 70 international students, in partnership with global news leaders and journalists, to guide news producers in creating content for young audiences.
For questions or comments write to writers@bostonbrandmedia.com
Source: wan-ifra
