Pete Clifton and BBC online: Preaching to the converted?

[Steven Hayes]

Journalism is in decline. Or at least it’s consumption is.
As Pete Clifton pointed out: the key demographic in this decline is
young adults (or 16-24s as his slightly ambiguous figures labelled them).



No doubt he is right. Young people are generally more apathetic about everything. Simply look at the turnout in student elections where you did your degree or at how many 18-30 year olds bothered to vote in recent general elections and the lack of interest in current affairs is palpable.



In placing this data at the beginning of his extremely polished presentation, Clifton implied that extending interactivity would increase the consumption of news in this demographic and stem the downward trend. He may be right, but with serious caveats.



It is one thing to create slicker websites, tailored to the users every need and designed to increase the interactivity between journalist and reader, and quite another to get people who were previously uninterested in news to suddenly become active in its pursuit. Technology is not a cure for apathy.



The vastly improved website features that Clifton pitched to us will increase the hits on the website but only amongst those who already digest news. It certainly won't make young adults who surf the internet to shop, check their emails or go on Facebook digest news with renewed vigour.



If Clifton could show increased hits to online services in a couple of years, I could believe he had managed to take users from other news websites, but I certainly couldn’t believe he had got more 16-24 year olds interested in news.