Greetings, from your friendly neighborhood public editor.
We have had a lot of dialogue with several different groups lately about different topics of our newspaper. Seeing as we are a journalism publication, the most popular thing students and faculty like to engage with us about is the content of our paper, and what can be changed to better and diversify our content.
In order to be as transparent as a student newspaper can be, we hold almost-monthly meet and greets, giving the student body a great opportunity to talk to us. As public editor, I take great pride in organizing these events as a fairly convenient way to engage with members of the public, and better our relationship with them. We even reward them with free stuff.
We issue surveys while the students meet our staff, and the feedback that we get from these surveys is very valuable. With each meet and greet we have, our feedback becomes better. With almost 200 surveys gathered in a four-hour period, I’ve spent hours upon hours flipping through what people had to say about our newspaper and the content that’s in it. Good, bad, ridiculous and all that’s in between, I love to provide our faithful readers with tidbits about what others had to say about our paper.
We use this information to try and assess what could be better about the Collegiate Times. For example, those surveyed claimed that they would read the CT more if they were not as busy or lazy, if the CT were more accessible, or they knew more about our online content. Although we can’t help people time manage or lighten their schedules so that they have time for the CT, we certainly can add more racks around campus, potentially move our existing racks into more convenient locations, or focus on our Web site content at www.collegiatetimes.com more often.
A majority of those surveyed read the CT two to three times a week, whether online or in print. If they didn’t read it as often, the most likely reason was because of their hectic schedule. One student even suggested having a “watered down” version of the CT: one that is more direct and to the point than the full newspaper, similar to the weekly papers that we put during the summer sessions when the entire student body isn’t here. These are all ideas
I’ll suggest to our management and see if they’re feasible, seeing as they are ideas that at least some students would like to see happen.
Although the location of our meet and greet this time (immediately in front of Dietrick Hall) may have skewed results with a concentration of on-campus inhabitants, it surprised me that almost 70 percent of those surveyed lived on campus. As you might know, a little more than 9,000 of our 28,000 students live on campus. There is a slight disconnect here, and proof that we need to more actively advertise our content and receive feedback from off-campus students.
As far as what people would like to see more in our paper, these topics included world news, sex talk, Virginia legislative news and comics. On a scale of one to 10, our average ranking was an 8.2. Additional comments that were noteworthy included, “need better people to write for you,” “very good paper,” “good coverage”and“more comics needed.” Our campus likes comics, I see.
As moderator of our online commenting forum, I am also responsible for reviewing more examples of informal feedback in the form of anonymous commenting. While online commenting will be the topic of my next column (look for it soon after spring break), the content that I see is hard not to mention in this piece.
Concerns that we sometimes receive about being biased, skewed, or unprofessional are contrasted with what we hear at these meet and greets. We want you to come out, give us your opinion, and let us know how you think the paper could better inform our community. I would like to personally encourage every single person who has ever made an anonymous comment to come to our next meet and greet, which will be conveniently held on the Drillfield in April. Hope to see you there.