This post was published originally on the old Newspaper Next site on the N2 Blog, Aug. 30, 2007. It was one of several posts in my API days dealing with the Newspaper Next project, an API partnership with Clayton Christensen. I blogged last week about Christensen’s most recent insights on the news business, Breaking News, in the Nieman Reports. I have updated the links. Thanks to Elaine Clisham for reminding me of my contributions to the N2 Blog.
At a recent reception, a colleague scorned efforts by the newspaper industry in the mid-1990s to appeal to young adults.
I could join that colleague (a former newspaper editor) in criticism of many things newspapers have tried in pursuit of young readers, but he was way off in one point that he made: He said newspapers were crazy to pursue nonconsumers. Who, he asked, ever succeeded by trying to sell to nonconsumers?
“Can you imagine the automobile industry targeting people who don’t drive?” he asked.
In a social setting where I didn’t feel like arguing, I let the comment pass. But it’s a point of view that inhibits innovation.
Let’s flip that editor’s question around: What business ever grew without winning over some nonconsumers?
The Buttry Diary 