We would like to thank all those who responded to our survey conducted in July. The results and your additional comments have been really useful, much appreciated and will help to guide the production team in improving your local paper still further.
Many readers completed the online form that was publicised with a link on Rye News home page and with requests sent out to the hundreds of subscribers to our free weekly “Alert”.
As well as responding to our questions, we were particularly interested to receive lots of comments and suggestions to the open-ended questions. Many of the comments were positive and the team were much encouraged by these.
But here is a quick summary of the main findings.
- Most (82%) of those who completed the survey read Rye News every week.
- The overall opinion of survey respondents showed 28% said Rye News was “Excellent”. 70% said we were either “Good” or “Could do better”.
- Half of the respondents found Rye News easy to read and find stories and a further 44% said it was easy but could be improved. [This is something that is being addressed as part of the paper’s planned face lift shortly]
- Most of the surveys (66%) were completed by readers who receive the Weekly Alert.
- 65 readers had sent us stories to be published and 13 had sent us several stories.
- The topics of interest were widespread but local politics was the most popular specific topic (72%)
- We had 10 offers of financial support both as sponsors and in other forms – however, as the survey was deliberately anonymous, we do not know who you are so please get in touch.
- 47% of those responding live in Rye, 31% within 10 miles and the rest from further away – including New Zealand.
- We had very few replies from younger people. Only one person under 16, otherwise none under 30. We would welcome contributed articles and ideas from this age group.
Here is a very random selection of the individual comments we received. All of them were very interesting and useful. Our answers to some of the comments are in italics.
“The way forward for local news. It’s great for those who don’t want to lose touch with a town they love but can’t be always there.”
“Yes, excellent… particularly when we remind ourselves that our friends compiling it are all carrying this responsibility voluntarily!”
“Please ensure you obtain both sides of stories” [Whereever possible, we do and we always welcome alternative viewpoints]
“The ability to comment on news pieces is valuable”
“Are you looking for contributors? It often seems that everything is done by quite a closed club but this may be the wrong impression.” [It is indeed the wrong impression and we would love to see more articles from new contributors. If you have something to say that might be of general interest, please get in touch]
“It seems very dominated by males.” [It is not – our core production team has equal numbers of males and females]
Despite the Survey being complete, we remain interested in any comments and suggestions you may have and if you would like to join the Rye News team please get in touch. And finally if you were one of the 10 people who offered to be a sponsor or who could help financially then please let us know who you are (email info@ryenews.org.uk) we would like to talk to you!