International Accident, Disaster Stories Generate Greater Interest among Students

With the long-term decline in newspaper readership, the youth market is becoming critical to the future of newspaper readership and circulation.1 In 2006, just 22 percent of those younger than 30-years-old reported reading the newspaper in print, and the statistics have the industry struggling to understand younger readers and their needs.2 This study specifically examines youth interest in international news-an area of increasing prominence in newspapers since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Journalists have been searching for ways to produce international news stories that all of their readers, not just younger audiences, would find interesting.3 Some researchers have found that presenting international news in a way that is personally relevant to readers has a positive effect on reader interest levels.4 Techniques include finding local angles to foreign stories, featuring Americans involved in international events or detailing the effects an international story can have on the United States.5 This research builds on a series of studies that have looked at international news interest among a broad readership. Participants were not more interested in the international news headlines featuring ordinary people than the international news stories featuring foreign governments, which contradicts existing literature.14 While proximity in a geographic sense did not result in higher interest scores among college students, proximity in a cultural sense did.