If you sell a product or a service for the 15-to-24 year old set, and if your PR and advertising campaigns are still focused on reaching people through the traditional mainstream print media, 80% of the young peple you're trying to reach will never see your ads or read any stories about you in the newspaper. Why? They don't read newspapers.

In this story, in which News Limited chairman and chief executive John Hartigan insists on making the point over and over again that newspapers are not dead, reporter Richard Gluyas of The Australian Media drops this one liner toward the end of his very interesting piece:

The need to adapt, though, was exemplified in the steady erosion of newspaper readership among 15- to 24-year-olds. Only 20 per cent of that age category read newspapers, down significantly from 65 per cent in 1972.

So how much time and money is still being spent, for example, by small and medium-sized privately-held companies trying to garner a mere mention in The New York Times? Folks, the era of 'influencing the influencers' is rapidly coming to a close. It's the age of going direct.

Meanwhile, readership tastes aside, I ask you how in world can a traditional pint newspaper compete with Google's latest news announcement, as noted and explained in this item by Danny Sullivan on search engine land:

Google News is asking people who are in news stories to email them comments about the story, which will be associated with those articles…

Now when or if the print edition of The New York Times writes about you and/or your company and they get it wrong, or they miss the point, or they slant a story for reasons unknown, or they don't spell your name right, what are your options? Pull your advertising? Write a letter to the editor? Call the publisher?

Don't be silly.

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