July 4, 2006

By BRAD DENNISON
APME Readership Committee vice chair

If you don't talk to your readers, you can't understand them. What they expect of you. What they like about you. What they don't like about you.

To be clear, a slap on the back from a city councilman doesn't count.

Neither does that angry reader on your voicemail this morning. And don't even try to count mom.

I'm talking about coordinated efforts to gather regular feedback from your readers – complete with schedules, lists and other symptoms of organization.

If your reader feedback is lacking, here are four ideas for digging in and learning more about what your readers expect of you:

A reader advisory board is a group of 10 to 15 average readers (not the mayor, not the Chamber president) that meets monthly for 90 minutes or so.

The individuals serve three- to six-month stints. In that time, the goal is to learn what people like and dislike about you, of course. But come to the meeting with focus and purpose. What are five burning questions you absolutely have to hear them answer? Or maybe you want to know how that new feature is going over.

To pull this group together, ask reporters for suggestions on average folks they've run into on their beats. Pull from the subscribers list. Pull from the ex-subscribers list. Promote the fact that you're seeking panel candidates prominently on Page One for a week. When you have your first group, offer a free subscription during their term with the stipulation that they attend the meetings and e-mail you feedback each week.

Then turn over the old group and pull together a new group before they become too much like us and less like average readers. You may also keep your eyes open for the most vocal and invite them to write a column on the experience.

Also consider spin-offs. If you're trying to understand your growing Hispanic market, put a group together for them so you can get to understand their issues. Or maybe your education coverage is too institutional.

Assemble a teen advisory board to get the issues from their perspective, as the Janesville (Wis.) Gazette does each month.

This doesn't have to be as formal as it sounds, but consider regularly scheduled meetings for the public. Maybe it's quarterly, or maybe annually.

Have the event off site at the local high school gym, whatever is comfortable. Invite the community to come in and talk about the issues that most concern them. Invite them to talk about what they like or don't like about the newspaper.

Also look for opportunities to invite people into your building. The Port Arthur (Texas) News launched a redesign in 2003 and invited the public in for a launch party. The paper quickly and unexpectedly ran out of parking and food.

The community wants to feel involved with the newspaper. Give people an outlet.

For the most part, the general public does not understand the way we operate. Watch a designer explain to someone on the outside exactly what it is they do ("You write what for who?")? Look for opportunities to educate the public on the newsgathering and decision-making process.

(Johnstown, Pa.) Tribune-Democrat Editor Chip Minemyer writes a weekly column where he can explain decisions. Why do we generally not publish photos of dead bodies, then the Pope dies, and there's a dead body on the front page of every newspaper in the world?

When you get 30 phone calls on an issue or an error, you have found a topic.

Innovative programs like The Niagara (N.Y.) Gazette's "Editor for a Day"

give readers a hands-on education. Earlier this year, the Gazette published an application and received about 60 in return. Each week, a reader spends the day with the newsroom learning how decisions are made and how the paper comes together. In this case, the education is a two-way street where the newsroom learns from the reader. It's not unusual in a news meeting for a savvy reader to question why a story isn't on Page One. It often results in a revised news decision.

Best of all, the next day, the newspaper publishes a photo of the reader with some basic information about the person, plus his or her contribution to that day's newspaper.

Survey sites like Zoomerang.com make it possible to do what I call "quick and dirty" surveys for free. Completely customizable, these surveys are a great way to get feedback from up to 100 people on a new column that's been publishing for a month, or that redesign you launched a few weeks back.

For a $500 annual fee, you get more bells and whistles and you can survey more than 100 people. Just another ingredient in gathering as much information as possible from your community.

These aren't the only ideas out there for getting attuned to readers, but this also isn't multiple choice – "That one sounds good, I'll do that."

Instead, it's a well-rounded approach intended to get feedback while building your brand and trust in the community.

On a basic level, our goal in newspapers is to produce content that is relevant, engaging and even entertaining to the reader.

So without the input of readers, we can't possibly accomplish that.

Dennison is vice president of editorial at Birmingham, Ala.-based Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., which owns 92 daily newspapers in 21 states. He can be reached at bdennison@cnhi.com, or 205-532-4607.