'Chicago Trib' Readies Youth Tabloid

By: (AP) The Chicago Tribune expects to launch a tabloid aimed at readers in the 18-34 age group.

The tabloid, given the working title Red Eye, would be sold only at newsstands, the newspaper reported Friday.

A formal announcement is expected next week, and the paper could be on newsstands in the city and close-in suburbs by November, the newspaper reported.

The Tribune Co. declined to say whether an announcement was imminent, the newspaper said in its report. Tribune Co. executives declined to comment to The Associated Press about the report.

The effort may be a new experiment for American newspapers, said John Morton, president of Morton Research, a media-consulting firm in Silver Spring, Md. "I'm not aware of any paper that has created a special newspaper oriented toward young people," Morton said.

While many newspapers, including the Tribune, have created special sections oriented toward the young, those sections have been "put inside the regular paper, the front page stays the same" as well as the majority of the newspaper content, Morton said. "Here, presumably, you're going to have a newspaper designed from front to back to appeal to younger people."

Young people are increasingly avoiding newspapers, a trend that has been going on for 10 to 30 years, according to various observers.

First, Morton said, television became an alternate, cheap source of entertainment. Now, "when they get out of high school, it is second nature for them to turn to a computer keyboard (to surf the Internet) just as it was second nature for my generation to pick up a newspaper," said Morton, who is 68.

Tribune Co.'s Long Island Newsday of Melville, N.Y., is also considering launching a paper for readers in the younger age group, the Chicago Tribune reported.

According to Editor & Publisher magazine, Gannett Co. plans to launch free weeklies this fall at its community newspapers in Boise, Idaho, and Lansing, Mich.

Gannett's Lansing State Journal, according to E&P, is aiming at 20- to 34-year-olds and will offer short, lifestyle stories that reflect their daily lives. The paper will not try to compete on local and national news with the State Journal.