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Today was a good day to be the Free Press editor.
I had the pleasure of hosting 30 of our Patrons at our morning news meeting, which was followed by a tour of the Free Press and a conversation over coffee in our cafeteria.
It was our way of saying thanks to readers who care so much about the journalism we deliver that they have gone above and beyond as subscribers by donating $150 or more to strengthen our mission.
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Their reasons for coming on board as a patron are varied, but they were all motivated by a desire to sustain an institution that has served our city and province since 1872. That’s the kind of loyalty you get from those who came of age with the Free Press and are still reading us daily, decades later.
But what about those who aren’t baby boomers or Gen X? How does the Free Press connect with Millennials who didn’t grow up in a home where the Free Press was always around? And what about Gen Zs, whose lives have been built around screen time and not newsprint?
That was one of the questions posed by our Patrons and, fortunately, I had an answer based on a new initiative we kicked off earlier this month at the University of Manitoba.
Free Press staff Alessandro Guzzardi and Nadya Pankiw were at the University of Manitoba campus last week to help make our pitch to students. (Winnipeg Free Press)
As part of a partnership with the province’s largest university, the Free Press is granting free access to everything our newsroom creates for students both on and off campus.
We know university students have a lot on their plate these days. They’ve got to keep up their grades, find ways to pay tuition and still carve out some time to live their lives.
But we are also betting university students know the importance of information they can trust. We want to remind them that big tech companies like Meta are blocking all Canadian news on their Facebook and Instagram platforms.
And that’s the basis for building a future generation of Free Press readers by delivering journalism that matters straight into their phone, tablet or laptop 24/7. By registering with their university student email, students have instant free access to our website, our apps and the e-edition. For those on the Fort Garry campus, we also have a few newsstands stocked with our dead-tree version. (U of M staff and faculty will also have access to our journalism when connected to the university wifi network.)
We had staff on campus last week to help make our free pitch to students and the early signs are encouraging. For some, removing the barrier of cost was a no-brainer to becoming a reader. For others, there were the insights gained from talking to a demographic who weren’t sure why “being in the know” mattered even if it cost zero dollars. I also heard from a professor who will double down on his repeated efforts to exhort students to subscribe to some “real news” feeds now that the Free Press is free for them.
The payoff from this project won’t be able to be measured for years. Will free access to the Free Press eventually create a reading habit they will want to pay to continue after graduating? Might some of these students even become future Free Press patrons?
I don’t know but I can always hope.
As I mentioned at the top, today was a good day to be a Free Press editor. But I’m always mindful I’m not doing my job unless I’m helping pave a path of readership growth so the Free Press editors of tomorrow can also have good days meeting with Patrons.
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