News publishers: cut your internet presence at your peril

The next generation of news consumers will not buy papers or magazines but get all their information and entertainment from the internet, according to communication expert Brent Baker.

Mr Baker, dean of Boston University's College of Communication, gave a talk to the media where he claimed that around 40 million "generation y" Americans were already living their lives entirely free of paper consumption.

"If you bring people into this new media world as children, do you really think they will go out and buy the New York Times?" He asked his audience. "And they're not watching television either."

In editorandpublisher.com , writer Jim Krane reported that Baker's message was clear to his audience: papers that cut back on their internet presence because of the dot.com downturn do so at their peril.

"There will come a time when your online unit will be supporting your offline unit," said Mr Baker. "There will be a great erosion in readership - with one exception: community newspapers."

A panel of six student guests agreed with them. They also revealed that they never clicked on banner adverts and that they preferred instant messaging or emailing to chat rooms, which they described as "creepy".

Mr Baker also mentioned the "cease and desist" orders sent by the publisher of Harry Potter children's books to fans operating Harry Potter Web sites. Instead of being cowed by the threats, the teen recipients organised a boycott this week of the forthcoming Harry Potter movie.

"The boycott is spreading like wildfire. How's that for interacting with your audience?" he said.

Exactly the opposite message was being relayed during another lecture at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Harald Stanghelle, a political journalist from Norway, told students that newspapers were here to stay.

He said that as long as print media retained editorial credibility, quality and content it would provide a different service to the internet, and would continue to interest readers. He added that internet news sites could "whet the appetite" for the more in-depth coverage of issues which was possible in newspapers.

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