Peterson: Survey says …
We asked, and you answered. At least more than 3,000 of you did in our latest Vail Daily reader survey, easily the most we’ve ever gotten for a poll of this kind.
First off, thanks for taking the time to give us your thoughts on what you like about our news products and how we can improve as an organization. While you’re not going to make everyone happy all the time, the overwhelming majority of readers who took our survey told us just how much they value our reporting on local news and how much they use the Vail Daily in their everyday lives.
According to the survey, 77% of respondents told us they read the Vail Daily in print or online at least 3-4 days a week. Fifty percent read us at least 5-6 days a week, while 23 percent told us they never miss a day of news.
Seventy-five percent of readers also told us that the top action they take as a result of reading the Vail Daily is sharing something they learned with others. The other top actions that readers said they take are:
- Patronizing a local business (63%)
- Making a decision or taking action with information gained (48%)
- Recommending the Vail Daily (31%)
We also got high scores from readers when it came to trust among media organizations. Seventy-five percent of readers said they trust the Vail Daily compared to 11 percent who said they don’t (13% had no opinion). Fifty-seven percent said they trusted national news outlets such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal compared to 23% who said they don’t, while 55% of respondents said they trusted state outlets like the Denver Post and Colorado Sun compared to 16% who don’t.
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When it came to news topics that readers said they are most interested in, responses mostly aligned with what we see on a daily basis in our online engagement metrics and echo trends we’ve seen in previous reader surveys.
Local government was the news topic that had the highest reader interest at 78%, followed by tourism and ski industry (69%), weather (67%), crime and public safety (67%), business, real estate, and the economy (62%), local politics and elections (59%), the environment (59%), features and human interest (57%), world and national news (51%), education (40%), and behavioral and mental health (37%).
While some of these news topics are broad and maybe even a little vague, it’s no surprise that readers care about us playing a watchdog role with local governments and public money. Or, that in the heart of Colorado Ski Country, readers are interested in tourism and the resort industry, real estate, and how much snow is in the local forecast.
We’re also not just going to abandon the education beat and our reporting on local schools, nor are we going to ignore the persistent behavioral health and mental health challenges we face in this valley, despite readers telling us they’re less interested in those topics. For one, 40% and 37% of respondents telling you they care about something is still a sizeable audience.
It also makes sense that second-home owners or visitors, two of our key reader demographics, don’t have a vested interest in the local schools or behavioral and mental health. But in a valley where suicide remains a leading cause of death, substance abuse is widespread, and the need for behavioral health services is unrelenting, it would be irresponsible and callous for us to not report on the progress being made and the challenges that are ongoing as our community works to change the status quo.
We’re also not going to stop reporting on high school sports, even though only 33% of readers told us they were interested in it compared to outdoor recreation (70%) and World Cup skiing (55%). There’s still room in our content plan for coverage of all three, along with exercise and fitness advice and regional coverage from the AP and state outlets on our professional and college teams.
For entertainment coverage, readers said they were most interested in our events calendar (82%), followed by events coverage (69%), dining and drinking (69%), previews of events (64%), shopping (33%), and art galleries (27%).
When it came to commentary topics, local columnists and letters to the editor received the most reader interest at 56% each, followed by environmental columns (43%), national columnists (26%), self-help and motivation columns (25%), real estate advice (22%), and financial planning (20%).
The majority of readers who took our survey told us that our opinion pages generally reflect a balance of opinions at 49%. But 23% of readers said those pages reflect liberal opinions compared to 4% who said our pages reflect conservative opinions. Thirteen percent said our opinion pages reflected moderate opinions.
A large majority of readers (59%) told us they want the Vail Daily to weigh in on community issues with editorials, compared to 16% who said no and 25% who said they were unsure.
I’ll delve into some of the comments readers gave us — both good and bad — at the end of our survey in a forthcoming column, since this one is already running long. One thing that did concern me, from all the data we got, is that only 277 people out of the 3,050 people who responded to our survey said they are under the age of 34.
Yes, newspaper readership tends to be older nationwide, but it does make me wonder if those in their teens, 20s and early 30s didn’t feel the need to give us their feedback — or if they’re just not that interested in their local newspaper, or don’t think their local paper reflects news and opinions that are important to them. It’s certainly something to work on.
Again, thanks to all of you who did give us your feedback. It only makes us better.
Nate Peterson is the editor of the Vail Daily. Email him at npeterson@vaildaily.com.
