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RJI Research

A Report of the 2007 Readership Research

The Community Newspaper Study has been a research effort by the National Newspaper Association (NNA), now housed in Missouri’s School of Journalism, along with assistance from the Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI), to examine public attitudes, perceptions and reading behavior about editorial and advertising content of local newspapers in small communities in the United States.

Telephone surveys were conducted in 2005 and 2007, and focused on the following areas of research: 

• Reading behavior of local newspapers  
• Reading advertisements in local newspapers
• Primary source of information about local communities
• Reading various contents of local newspapers
• Evaluation of attributes of “good journalism” in local newspapers*
• Evaluation of local newspapers
• Purchasing plans for a variety of goods and services
• Demographics

(*Measures of good journalism were added to the 2007 survey. They will be included in the 2008 study, as well.)

In the 2007 survey, 505 interviews were completed with adults who lived in areas whose total population was 25,000 or less in the United States in July and September; in 2005, 503 interviews were completed with adults who lived in newspaper markets of less than 100,000 people who were not being served by metropolitan newspapers in July and October. Both surveys were administered by the Center for Advanced Social Research of the Missouri School of Journalism.

According to the 2007 survey:

• 83% of the adults over the age of 18 read a local newspaper every week,
• 73% of those readers shared their paper with friends, colleagues or family members (more than doubling the number of people who see the paper),
• On average, readers spent 41.8 minutes reading an issue of their paper, and
• Nearly one-third of readers kept their paper for more than six days, enabling them to revisit a story or advertisement at their leisure.

According to the 2005 survey:

• 81% of the adults over the age of 18 read a local newspaper every week,
• 75% of those readers shared their paper with friends, colleagues or family members (more than doubling the number of people who saw the paper),
• On average, readers spent 38 minutes reading an issue of their paper, and
• One-quarter of readers kept their paper for more than six days.

“I’m not immune to some very significant challenges facing the newspaper industry, but these numbers don’t quite support 'the sky is falling' mantra,” says Brian Steffens, director of the NNA. “Part of the problem with reporting on the health and welfare of the newspaper industry is that virtually all of the previous research has been focused on large daily newspapers serving the top 100 markets. There are more than 1,400 daily newspapers and about 8,000 non-daily community newspapers across America. The top 100 do not tell the whole story, but that’s about all we’ve seen reported on the past few years.”

As for primary source of information about local communities, the 2007 survey showed:

• 45.3% from local newspaper
• 20.6% from local television
• 5.7% from local radio
• 3.5% from the Internet

Similarly, in 2005:

• 50% from local newspaper
• 16% from local television
• 9% from local radio
• 2% from the Internet

Readers in 2007 told NNA their preferred source of information about local communities as follows:

• 46.9% from local newspaper
• 18.6% from local television
• 5.7% from local radio
• 4.6% from the Internet.

The 2007 findings also noted:

• 99% of the readers read local news, up from 95% in 2005; and 64% read local news “very often”, up by 15% from 2005,
• 92% read education (school) news, the same as in 2005,
• 94% read state government news; up from 91% in 2005,
• 89% read editorials or letters to the editor, up slightly from 2005,
• 77% read local sports, virtually identical to 2005, and
• 72% read public notices, nearly identical to 2005.

These are the bread-and-butter topics of community newspapers. But how well did community newspapers perform these functions?

The 2007 survey showed:

• 76% of the readers believed their local news coverage was good to excellent, almost identical to 2005 (78%),
• 70% believed the accuracy of their community newspaper was good to excellent, up slightly from 2005 (67%),
• 67% believed the quality of writing in their community newspaper was good to excellent, a slight increase from 2005 (64%), and
• 62% believed the fairness of reporting was good to excellent, an increase of four percentage points from 2005 (58%).

“While there is room for improvement, it should be noted that these were rated on a five-point scale, with the middle being fair or acceptable,” Steffens says. “Adding fair or acceptable to these numbers would push them up even more dramatically.”

The 2007 survey added a new set of questions asking readers to rate the following statements on a seven-point scale, from (1) “doesn’t describe at all” to (7) “describes extremely well.”

• “My newspaper makes it very easy to find the information I want”: 81% combined (5-7) agreed,
• “My newspaper is well-organized and easy to get through”: 80% combined (5-7) agreed,
• “My newspaper understands the things that are of special interest and importance to people who live in the area”: 77% combined (5-7) agreed,
• “My newspaper is a newspaper I really trust”: 73% combined (5-7) agreed,
• “My newspaper has stories for people with my particular interests”: 69% combined (5-7) agreed,
• “My newspaper is extremely useful to me personally”: 64% combined (5-7) agreed,
• “My newspaper does an excellent job of investigating claims and statements made by government, civic and business leaders”: 63% combined (5-7) agreed,
• “My newspaper really cares about people like me”: 62% combined (5-7) agreed,
• “My newspaper gives me the information I need to hold government, civic and business leaders to a high level of accountability”: 56% combined (5-7) agreed,
• “My newspaper does a better job than any other news source of helping me understand the news”: 52% combined (5-7) agreed, and
• “My newspaper provides more background and depth than any other news source”: 48% combined (5-7) agreed.

NNA also learned in 2007:

• 90% of the readers combined (5-7) said it was important for the public, or the newspaper on the public’s behalf, to hold government, civic and business leaders to a high level of accountability, and
• 90% of the readers combined (5-7) said it was important for the public, or the newspaper on the public’s behalf, to investigate the claims and statements made by government, civic and business leaders.

To reinforce the concept that the public, or newspapers on the public’s behalf, should hold government accountable, 79% of the readers said that government should be required to publish public notices in newspapers. This is an increase from 71% in 2005.

“Media reports have painted the Internet as perhaps the chief nemesis of newspapers,” Steffens says. “Yet newspapers are responding to the Internet as an opportunity, not just a threat.”

Internet access at home has increased to 67% in 2007 from 61% in 2005 in the small communities sampled. Meanwhile, Broadband (high speed) Internet access jumped to 65.5% in 2007 from 38.6% in 2005.

Nearly 30% of the community newspaper readers reported they had visited their local newspaper’s web site in the last month, an increase from 19.5% in 2005.

In addition, readers go to the local newspaper’s Web site for:

• News, sports and weather (44% in 2007 compared to 33% in 2005),
• Obituaries (23% in 2007 compared to 10% in 2005),
• Classified ads (16% in 2007; n/a for 2005), and
• Searching archived stories (4.5% in 2007 compared to 19% in 2005).

In 2008, the Reynolds Journalism Institute will continue to work with the National Newspaper Association to examine the importance of community newspaper in the American life in today’s media environment. The sampling universe may focus more on smaller communities such as population sizes of 10,000 or less across the United States and on readers of weekly newspapers and small community dailies. The results of the study are expected to be available in September and October 2008.

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