Media companies need to make greater efforts to understand young people’s news consumption, according to the executive director of Associated Press Television News.
Nigel Baker told Press Gazette: “You get middle-aged news executives who don’t understand enough about the news consumption habits of the younger audiences, and I think news companies will have to be more scientific in the future about how they examine audience needs in the next 10-20 years.
“Gone are the days when a gentleman with a bow tie and red braces could arbitrarily set the agenda based on his 40 years’ experience.”
The results of a survey on students’
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media consumption will be presented at Newswatch06, a conference being opened by Baker at Bournemouth University on 8 June.
Baker said: “Often people deride media studies courses, but it’s a golden opportunity to pick the brains of those people to discover what is being watched or being read by 18- to 25-yearolds.
Once they get into media jobs they often become so overwhelmed by the established thinking that they think like some of the middle-aged journalists.”
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Journalists have been invited to take part in the online survey at www.newswatch06.com/survey.php
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