The good news: young people have almost twice the confidence in newspapers than the overall population.
While 25 percent of adults polled by Gallup are "confident" in newspapers, 49 percent of those aged 18 to 29 give newspapers a big thumbs-up. Another plus for papers: the younger segment shows the biggest confidence gap when newspapers are compared to TV news.
Only 24 percent of the group are confident in TV news. There is little variation in the other age groups polled, a pox on both mediums.
The major challenge for newspapers: tracking down those young fans to encourage them to spring for a paper once in a while. Though confident, younger people read papers the least. They are slackers indeed.
In my commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan, only graybeards read papers. Young people are either caught up with iPods (hopefully reading content or listening to podcasts of the New York Times) or checking out Facebook pages. A quick survey of my college-aged daughter's friends reinforces the point that papers just aren'’t part of their everyday routines. There is not a single fan of newsprint in her group.
The confidence in the print media expressed to Gallup may represent more of the idealism of youth than a portent of a brighter future for old media. Or did the youngsters just tell the pollsters what they thought they were expected to say? Or are kids confident in papers because they don’t know what's inside a paper?
The Gallup poll finds 30-to-49-year-olds are most jaded towards newspapers. A mere 16 percent are confident.
On the political front, conservatives have little use for newspapers media (18 percent confident), while liberals register almost double the confidence level at 35 percent. Is that a sign of a liberal media bias?