Technological advances allow us to know what online readers want in a way that was unthinkable to many of us 20 years ago.
Each day, we have the ability to look at real-time analytics and data that help us know almost instantly what’s resonating with readers on our newspaper websites. These metrics allow us to know how much time readers spend with a story and how many pages they viewed.
Measuring interest and likability for the printed product is not nearly as advanced. We still mostly rely on longer-term research, focus groups and good old letters to the editors to gauge reaction about what readers like, want and what they’re dissatisfied with.
I receive a lot of email, phone calls and, yes, sometimes handwritten letters from readers who are pretty vocal with their opinions.
They don’t hold back in letting us know how they feel about news coverage or, in some cases, the lack thereof. Still, it’s always good to know what readers think about what we do.
Reader feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, helps us evaluate what we’re doing and how well we’re doing it. I learned early on that being defensive gets you nowhere. I almost never respond immediately to an email – particularly a heated one. Waiting an hour or so, or even an afternoon, allows you to read the letter a couple of times and truly hear what the reader is saying and respond accordingly.
For instance, one reader had this to say about our recent Ferguson, Mo., police shooting coverage:
"I am dismayed that the AJC chose to hide the military takeover of a United States town on page two rather than as a front page story. This story is FAR more important to United States citizens than what's going on overseas."
The reader made a point of saying that she was 48 years old, a 25-year subscriber – and a white female. On the day she was referring to, we had a lead story and photograph with the headline: “U.S. breaks siege on Iraqi mountain.” On Page 2 was a story about the Ferguson police chief saying the officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed teen had sustained injuries during a scuffle with the teen before the shooting. Meanwhile, the first night of violence had erupted with police using armored vehicles and tear gas to disperse growing crowds.
The placement of the two stories certainly gave the appearance that this wasn’t a big story for us, and that coverage of what was going on in Iraq was more important.
As I explained to the reader, when we made our decisions about Page 1 coverage late in the evening of the day before, things were pretty quiet in Ferguson. The best story we had at the time just didn’t have enough information to make it a front page story. The scenes she saw on TV and news sites occurred very late that night, long after our print publication deadlines.
A week later, another reader had a very different point of view on the Michael Brown shooting:
“I’m wondering why there was nothing in the AJC about the shooting death of Dillon Taylor on 8/11/14 in Salt Lake City, UT? Dillon was an unarmed 20 year old White male who was shot and killed by a “non-White” policeman! We saw countless coverage of the Michael Brown incident, but nothing about Dillon Taylor, yet the circumstances are similar except the victim was White and the policeman was not! Is there some racial bias at work here?”
For the AJC, the incident became a story for our readers when the local community made it so. Our first staff story was not about the shooting itself, but about the social media activism that brought hundreds of area college students out to a rally about three days later. That’s not something we could ignore.
We continued with the story after the unrest in Ferguson grew to a point where state troopers were being called in to deal with the crowds, violence and looting.
Then there are times when readers take up a cause and hold us accountable almost daily for coverage they deem slanted and unfair. This happens most often with national, international or political news where we rely mostly on wire services for content. The conflict in Israel and Gaza has been a touch point for several weeks now. One very vocal reader is frustrated by some of our wire coverage, which he believes portrays Israel as the aggressor when he says Israel is simply trying to protect its citizens from constant rocket firing from Hamas rebels. He also believes including the number of casualties is misguided. Here’s his take:
“All civilian casualties are a tragedy. However, the claim that three-quarters are civilians is already known to be false. …. Hamas counts almost all militants as civilians — and the majority of casualties appear to have been men between the ages of 21 to 49. If you expand the age range, noting that Hamas uses children as young as 12 to set off rockets, the proportion increases. … Why do you lend such credence to these distortions?”
We recognize that many readers have very strong opinions about the Gaza conflict. We don’t have an agenda, and try our best to choose stories that present the facts in a balanced way. And we appreciate the insight from people pretty close to the situation. And clearly there are readers who disagree with our coverage on the other side, as evidenced from this letter from a retired military officer who served in the Middle East:
“I am writing to you to find out why there is no news reported in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution when there are Palestinians killed by Israeli forces for no other reason than protesting land grabs, or home demolitions by Israeli forces. I am sure if there were two Israeli soldiers shot and killed, it would be headline news in the AJC but when they are Palestinian teens killed by Israeli soldiers or by Israeli police, the AJC just ignores it.”
While we may not be able to satisfy everyone in the back and forth on sensitive issues like this one, we do read the comments and try to reflect fairness as best we can in the stories we choose.
But not all letters and emails are from readers who want more diligent coverage of controversial topics, or who write about some of our popular special sections. Take this one that started with a bit of sarcasm:
“Thank you SO MUCH for your conscientious coverage of Elvis week. It warms my heart to know you have older readers’ interests in mind. You killed trees, wasted lots of paper and ink and money on that stupid football preview and you couldn’t print one picture or story from Graceland? Did it ever occur to you that people are sick to death of politics, war, riots and child deaths? Maybe we’d like something fun for a change.”
Ouch… Point taken. As a former entertainment and features editor, I assured the reader that I appreciate a good, fun read myself. With so much focus (and rightly so) on government watchdog reporting, politics and crime, it’s still important for us to remember lighthearted stories resonate with readers as well. We try to do that every day in our Living sections, but sometimes we still miss stories that are important topics for some readers. I told the reader we’d try to do better next year. She seemed satisfied with the response, but reminded me that I didn’t have to wait a year and that I could make it up to her on Elvis’ birthday in January.
