That seems to be the reasoning (such as it is) behind AP's new youth initiative, as Jeff Jarvis writes:

I’m not a big fan of youth products. I believe that readers are just readers and it’s condescending to target something to young people because — so the reasoning and self-fulfilling focus groups say — they allegedly like shorter stories and punchier stuff. No, they want to be informed like anyone! I’m not young (damnit) but I, too, don’t like long, overwritten stories. Anyway, in The Times story on the AP’s asap, as the product is called, this was a line that hit me:

They said asap would use the word “you” more in its articles but would maintain A.P. standards.

Arrrgh. So young people in droves will flock back to newspapers because they are addressed in the second-person. But they’ll be relieved that this doesn’t degrade AP standards. Arrgh again.

Now I don’t want to single out the good folks at the AP. The point is that this is the sort of thing I’ve heard in no end of endless meetings about about what publishers can do to get the elusive young person to read papers. I’ve heard executives earnestly believe that this kind of thing will make a difference.

But maybe they don’t want to read papers. Or maybe they don’t want to read our papers. Or maybe they don’t want to read what we have to say on paper. Maybe we need to break free of the medium and reinvent our relationship with the public and stop thinking of that public as them or you but instead as us.