To revitalize print media, which has fallen out of the spotlight due to the rise of social media, a local newspaper in Çanakkale, northwestern Türkiye, tasked a child with distributing newspapers on the streets. As the familiar shouts of "Extra! Extra!" rang out in Çanakkale, streets, residents were taken on a trip down memory lane.

Çanakkale Boğaz Newspaper, in response to the growing dominance of social media, assigned a child to hand out complimentary newspapers on the streets.

Under the slogan "Put down social media, pick up print media," the shouts of "Extra! Extra!" echoed through Çanakkale, prompting many residents to pick up a paper and reminisce. Ismet Akıncı, chair of the Boğaz Media board of directors in Çanakkale, said the project was launched to bring print media back to its glory days and should serve as an example for the rest of Türkiye.

"We thought of this idea when we realized print media was on the verge of extinction. Print media in both Çanakkale and Türkiye is in decline. At one point, there were 1,100 local newspapers in Türkiye, but now that number has dropped to around 500. The trend suggests even fewer papers in the future due to rising costs."

"Social media has taken the lead recently, pushing print media further out of focus. To raise awareness, we developed the slogan, 'Put down social media, pick up print media.' One of our colleagues had a child, so we decided to create awareness by distributing one of our papers this way every Saturday," Akıncı said.

Delivering newspapers

Akıncı, who learned the business from the ground up, added: "This is the first time something like this has been done in Çanakkale. I’ve been a journalist since 1986, and I’ve never seen this done in all my years. We always talked about it among our colleagues, but we couldn’t find the right person to do it – even our children weren’t interested. Our colleague’s child would sometimes make newspapers out of A4 paper and bring them to us. We thought, 'If he can do that, he can do this.' I also started my career delivering newspapers, and today, we’ve succeeded because we learned the trade from the ground up. This initiative shouldn’t just be for Çanakkale; it should serve as an example for all of Türkiye."