A day of contrasts

A day in the life of a community newspaper journalist is one of contrasts.
On Tuesday, I started the day out having breakfast with the business community covering a speech by MP John Duncan on the softwood lumber war with the U.S. and a presentation to the Daybreak Rotary Club recognizing its Maritime Heritage Centre project. The (long) day ended with me covering the labour movement with the local teachers holding a rally outside the school district office. Start with business and end with labour. In between I labour to write stuff and layout pages.
I've been thinking a lot lately about tailoring our content to attract younger readers. It's an issue that newspapers all over North America are fretting about. There's lots of suggestions but few people actually doing anything concrete. It is a difficult thing to radically change your look and content to cater to a single demographic. Newspaper – and community newspapers in particular – have relied on trying to be all things to everyone so narrowing our focus is a risky business. You want to attract younger readers (who apparently are not reading traditional newspaper much any more) but you don't want to alienate loyal, older readers. A dilemma.
I did come across an exciting project that I think can provide me with a prototype to follow. It's a project by the Readership Institute and the Star Tribune in Minnesota wich developed prototypes for revamping your paper to make it more appealing to younger readers. I like what they do because I think it is a dynamic style that will appeal to anyone. Look for me to incorporate some of the suggestions.
In the meantime, if anyone has suggestions of their own as to what a community newspaper can and should do to appeal to younger – say twentysomething – readers, I'd love to hear them.