Barking up the wrong tree

Newspapers turn to podcasting to shore up readership among younger demos.

The logic goes like this: kids are way into iPods; podcasting is related to iPods; therefore podcasting is the ticket to the young audience. I've seen the general idea quoted by expert after expert including the big tech analysts, and it never feels quite right to me. I don't think it's a youth phenomenon.

For one thing, there's a recent survey saying it's not the case. And anecdotally, I'm around a lot of kids, my high school and college aged sons and their friends. I've asked them about podcasting and end up having to explain it to them.

It's one of "goes-without-saying" truths that influential people like reporters seem to cling to even if they don't have any evidence for it. How does something get to be a given like that?