If Real Change had a dollar for every reader who said, “Wow, I didn’t realize it, but Real Change is actually a good newspaper!,” we wouldn’t need to do fund drives. It seems like every week I hear about a reader who tells us that they have been buying the paper for years to support their vendor, but never actually read it. On one level, that’s OK. Circulation is circulation, and it provides a stable revenue source to Real Change and immediate income to very low-income vendors.
But we produce a high-quality paper every week, not only to raise revenue and provide vendors with a product to sell, but also because our newspaper is one of the most important ways that we educate people and build awareness around issues of class, inequality and racial injustice in our community. When people buy the paper but don’t read it, we are not fully accomplishing our mission.
We take a lot of pride in the quality of the paper. By now, you have probably heard all about the 16 first-place journalism awards we won last year from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and Washington Press Association (WPA). This week, we were notified by WPA that our journalists and our graphic artist have again all won multiple awards, which will be presented on May 9. I’m certain additional awards from the SPJ and International Network of Street Papers will follow. While we love that people want to buy our paper to support our vendors, we’d love it even more if they read it to discover that it’s an exceptional source of hard-hitting news that you generally won’t find in the mainstream media.
We feel strongly enough about people reading the paper that we made “to increase the number of people who buy and read the paper” the first goal of our current strategic plan. We were intentional about separating out reading and buying and will measure them independently. To get some baseline data, we’re in the midst of surveying readers to learn more about their purchasing patterns and to solicit feedback on the content of the paper. In the survey, we ask questions like “How well do we do covering both sides of issues?,” “How well does our paper support our mission?” and “What is not in the paper that you would like to see?” We do this survey every three years and take it seriously. We use the results to make the paper even better.
We think that our new cashless app, along with the digital version of the paper, is one of many exciting opportunities to increase readership. With a click on their smartphone, buyers will have a copy of the paper in their pocket, available anytime, be it while they are riding the bus or standing in line at Starbucks waiting for coffee. Our new website, and aggressive plans to expand our social media presence, will also generate new readers.
If you are reading this article, you’re already a reader of the paper. But your friends, colleagues and workmates may be among the many who either don’t take the paper seriously for the quality journalism it is, or who buy it to support their vendors but have no idea of what’s inside.
If you haven’t already done so, please fill out our survey and encourage others to do the same. We’re hoping to get to 1,000 reader responses. The link is http://goo.gl/Esohdn. If you’re tech savvy and tethered to your smartphone, you can also take the survey on your phone by scanning the QR code on page 12 of this issue. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to help us make Real Change the best it can be.