Obama campaign shows newspapers how to reach readers

Newspaper editors and publishers looking for survival solutions could learn a few things from Barack Obama's winning campaign.

The election showed journalists who are the new readers they need to attract. President Obama's campaign also showcased more sophisticated ways to use online social networks to connect with and energize readers.

The campaign used Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn to target voters receptive to Obama's message: educated, higher-income whites, young and middle age. He also used the lnternet to generate volunteers, contributions and suggestions from supporters.

The Obama coalition centers on young people, minorities and the suburbs. Notice: This is the next America - young people, minorities and suburbanites, who are increasingly diverse. These three groups are also a rich source of potential readers of newspapers.

A majority of white voters - 55 percent - supported the Republican ticket, the losers.  

Traditional newspaper readers are white. But white people who are not Hispanic are declining in their relative numbers. In 2000, whites were nearly 70 percent of the U.S. population. They are now 66 percent, and their decline is projected to continue. In California and Texas, the largest states, whites who are not Hispanic are already the minority. Florida and Illinois are on the brink of non-Hispanic whites becoming minorities.

Obama won 95 percent of the black vote and 67 percent of the votes cast by Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans. Latinos, who are a combination of U.S. citizens and immigrants from nearly 30 different countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean, are the largest U.S. minority. They are fueling growth in the nation's population.

Gen Y/Millennial voters overwhelmingly supported the Democratic ticket.   These 18- to 29-year-old voters traditionally don't vote. That was not the case last year. In 2008, this generation crested, with the largest number of its members turning 18. That means that many voted for the first time. This includes my two nieces who followed the election and were excited about voting. This generation is crucial to the survival of newspapers.

In 1980, Republican Ronald Reagan won the suburbs by a comfortable margin. Back then the suburbs were overwhelmingly white and largely middle class.

Nearly 40 years later, the suburbs are more diverse than many cities. The Obama-Biden ticket won 50 percent of the suburban vote.

Middle-class blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans have been moving out of cities into suburbs. Suburbs are the first American address of many Latino and Asian immigrants, transforming those communities from the Washington, D.C., area to the Los Angeles area into tapestries of races and ethnicities.

As minorities have burgeoned in the suburbs, newspaper readership has fallen.

Obama's campaign used social networking sites to pull together two important strands of his coalition: young voters and educated, higher-income voters.

The campaign understood the viral nature of the Web - that supporters would spread information to their friends and relatives.

Obama's ability to raise millions in small contributions brought a candidate who had been a little-known junior senator from Illinois serious national attention.

The campaign insisted on having a two-way conversation with supporters. When pundits urged Obama to 'go negative' against his opponents, for instance, the campaign asked supporters what to do.

Newspapers use Twitter and Facebook to get news out. But reporters and editors need to interact with readers. Talk with them.

What about a newspaper telling its readers:  'We need to make changes. We need your ideas. Send us your thoughts.' Devoted readers love their newspapers. They would happily offer editors money-saving ideas.

The Obama campaign has given newspapers our lede. Now we just need to write the rest of the story.

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