Maricris Julie Taeza
Gretchen Letterman has been part newspaper industry for more than 30 years and has witnessed first-hand the numerous changes the
industry has gone through. She sees the current media landscape as an opportunity for newspapers to reinvent themselves into sustainable entities that will provide consumers with information they need.
Gretchen Letterman, editorial/creative director of Times Targeted Media, presented to a full-capacity crowd at the David Letterman Communication and Media Building a presentation titled “The News about Newspapers: It’s enough to make your heart Twitter” on February 2, 2009.
The sister of talk show host David Letterman reminded students that print media is not dying but changing. “Emerging media is making the newspaper industry stand up and think—something we should have done 20 years ago,” she said. “It makes us think about our audiences more. It is going to be survival of the fittest.”
Letterman added that emerging media will make journalists smarter.
“I still have to reinvent and rethink the way I do journalism almost on a daily basis,” she said. “We have a lot of catching up to do, but without this catalyst, we would not be doing it. We would be in worse shape than we are now.”
Mary Spillman, news-editorial sequence coordinator, said hearing how a newspaper company operates is important.
“Unfortunately, newspapers have to lay off folks and reconfigure their departments, so any kind of real-world knowledge is valuable for students,” she said. “But (Letterman) is using the challenges for new opportunities. She is a very positive person about the newspaper industry.”
A former manager of the Newspaper in Education (NIE) program, Letterman also emphasized the importance of introducing newspapers to a younger crowd.
Studies show students who learn with newspapers in their classrooms have a 66 percent better chance of becoming lifelong readers, she said. This applies not only to newspapers, but also to any kind of printed material.
“If you read newspapers, you are also more likely to vote,” she added. “Getting that engaged citizenry is important.”
Journalism graduate student Jared Grigsby found the focus on young readers—how to get them involved with print and electronic media—as the strongest point of Letterman’s lecture. “I was struck by how NIE makes newspapers structured for younger readers,” he said.
Letterman, who has held various newsroom positions at
The St. Petersburg Times over the last 26 years, rejoiced at seeing so many students listen to her speech. “I am thrilled that there are so many of you here tonight because it means there is more than a glimmer of hope for the future of the information dissemination business,” Letterman said.
Sally Ransom, a junior photojournalism student, found Letterman’s presentation interesting. “After hearing all the time that the newspaper industry is dying, it’s good to hear from Letterman that it is not,” she said.