The Associated Press recently published a report on "A New Model for News: Studying the Deep Structure of Young-Adult News Consumption" And I just wanted to put it down for the record that in this supposed "research" document they so solidly missed the mark it is painful.

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The report comes to the sweeping conclusion is that young adults are suffering from "News Fatigue" and that news consumers have a form of "learned helplessness".

Highlighting the popularity of news satire from folks like Stephen Colbert, John Stewart, and Howard Stern, they evidence their denial "that young consumers are rejecting traditional news formats"

The only advantage that radio and television have over print media is that they are continuously updated. In all reality, the average CNN "story" contains little more than 10 sentences of truly informative information, typically diced up with all sorts of other irrelevant foolishness.

AP needs to come to terms with the fact that my RSS reader provides not only stories and content focused specifically on my interests, but also the ability to choose my level of involvement in a story! While I currently have over 411 stories waiting on it (most of which I will never read anything more than the title), none of them include any of the following:

1. Celebrity BS
2. Story Bumpers/Teasers/Overhead
3. Advertisements

The idea that we choose the media we experience is crucial, and notably completely missing in their particular synopsis. The whole thing feels more like a denial of irrelevance than anything else.

The final recommendation is similarly void:

"They (the news consumer) understood that aggregating their own personal news reports could involve real work, but they were willing to do it if the effort produced real currency."

Lastly . . .

"Young people are tired of the same old news and want something better. They just need some help."

Yes. I need you help AP. Oh whatever would I do without you.

If I had to end that paragraph it would be something as follows: "We are perilously behind the curve for how young people communicate and experience the news. We need to start delivering something they think is valuable if we hope to keep our jobs!"

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