A bad makeover idea?

Newspapers are slowly losing circulation (and getting caught when they lie about their circ numbers). Worse, newspapers are losing readers (their traditional readers are dying). And they’re not gaining many new readers, either (because the ‘Net has stolen them away with its lure of anytime, anything and lotsa video.

That’s what wags say about the print industry these days.

So what does the newspaper industry choose to do regain or attain relevance to more readers? Work on getting more readers? Apparently not.

Instead, an industry group, the Newspaper Association of America, joined by trade group Magazine Publishers of America, has hired the Martin Agency of Richmond, Va., ” to help change the perception of newspapers from stodgy to contemporary” (See the NYT story). But not for the benefit of readers: They want advertisers to take notice of print’s alleged switch to non-stodginess.

Advertisement