First Draft by Tim Porter

Generation Thumb

Newspapers have gotten their inky butts kicked by television, the Internet, talk radio and shouting pundits. The next boot on the back page appears to be coming from text messaging.

"The growing 'thumb generation' posed the greatest new challenge to traditional media, with cell phone text messages conveying news, rumors and gossip, said Pedro J. Ramirez, editor of Spain's El Mundo," reported Eweek.

Of course, this is all about chasing the mirage-like "young reader," who, according some massive Italian study, dislikes newspapers for "using arcane language, rehashing crime stories already seen on television and wasting space by reporting on reality TV shows."

All good reasons for not reading, but I say let the generation thumb be generation dumb if they want to be. There are millions of adult non-readers for newspapers to chase -- and be caught -- with quality local journalism.

(TKS 2 LOST REMOTE 4 THE TIP).

Posted by Tim Porter at May 9, 2004 05:49 PM