Content.

There just isn’t enough content that appeals to younger readers in most newspapers. As many of my younger readers have noted, newspapers are aimed at older people, many of them retired. It’s not just the print format that bothers younger people.

Why aren’t there more stories that matter to younger generations? When you look at the kinds of stories that papers write about, especially local papers, it should not be a shock that younger people in this country are not interested. I read the Post, Times and other major publications because I care about what is going on in the U.S. and the World (I was a political science major after all).

But I really don’t read smaller papers, and I’m not that dedicated of a read to either the Post or Times. I check CNET.com more often than I check washingtonpost.com. The content over at CNET is often just more appealing to me.

A lot of papers try to cater to a younger audience by releasing an “alternative publication.” Those are insulting and not aimed at young professionals — an audience that newspapers desperately need. An astute Journalism Iconoclast reader, and young copy editor, recently said:

I’ve seen a lot of newspapers attempt to put out a print product specifically for the 18-26 or 21-30 crowd. They’re terrible. For some reason, the people launching these things think that young professionals only care about happy hour, movies, concerts and restaurants. All we care about is entertainment. Do they really think we’re that one-dimensional?

There’s a market out there (probably on the Web) for a publication with information and stories relevant to young people’s lives. To be honest, no matter how great my newspaper’s Web site becomes, I wouldn’t be interested in it — its content is geared toward parents and senior citizens.

What the younger crowd needs is the right content packaged the right way. Stories about people our age and how national stories affect people our age. Just please, no more lists of “hot bars.”

We want meaningful stories about the issues that matter most in our lives.

Why aren’t there more stories about how expensive higher education is? That’s certainly an area that appeals to high school, college age and post college age people. It also appeals to parents as well.

College is becoming outrageously expensive, with many top schools costs rising at 7%+ each year. That far outpaces inflation and economic growth in this country. To make matters worse, President Bush and Congress cut some higher education aid.

The Iraq War is often told through lenses that appeal to older generations, but rarely touches on the levels that matter most to my generation — the generation fighting the war. A lot of older people want to debate why we got into this war, how we can win it or how best to withdrawal. But if you might actually fight the war, you’re much more concerned about adequate equipment, deployment times (stop loss, etc), what will happen to you if you get injured, will the happen once you get discharged, the realities of post traumatic stress syndrome, etc.

Social Security and health care are two other huge areas of concern. We know that Social Security will not be able to sustain itself, which would have a massive impact on my generation. Older generations simply don’t care about this because it won’t affect them, but it is a big deal to millions of Americans.

My age group is also the least insured of any group in America. How often do we hear about that, or the decisions that many people my age face with regards to health care?

Then there is arts and entertainment coverage. For many people in my generation video games are preferred over movies and music. Yet, most main stream media publications treat video games as some sort of bastard child. They don’t cover the industry (an industry that many older politicians want to censor) or regularly review games.

Yet, there are plenty of music and movie reviews. You might want to start seriously considering video games. It’s an important art form to millions of Americans. The average video game player is not a kid, as the media stereotype would have you believe. According to the Entertainment Software Association, the average video game player is 33 years old.

The average person who reads movie reviews in a paper is probably at least twice that age. If you want to attract younger people, like say me, you might want to have content that appeals to us. Appealing content would work very well on your Web sites.

These are just a few areas that newspapers could cover differently, but there are countless examples and stories that matter to my generation. But no one is telling them.

Three of my most visited sites are IGN.com, CNET.com and DrudgeReport.com. You might want to take note of that.

The content just isn’t there in most newspapers or on their Web sites, let alone the ways we want news covered.

If all the people making decisions at your publication are old, white males, who do you honestly expect is your audience?

Old, white males.

 Don’t miss part one from last month.