Lately, I’ve been thinking about 2024.
For me, December isn’t just a time for taking stock in the year that’s ending. It’s also a time to plan for what lies ahead.
A key component of that planning begins today with the initiation of our Bucks County Herald Reader Survey.
Since I started in the role of editor-in-chief last December, I have gotten a fair amount of feedback. I’m genuinely grateful for the phone calls, emails, letters to the editor, social media comments, and meetings with community members that have included commentary on how the Herald is doing.
But it occurs to me that those comments, while certainly valuable, are largely coming from people who faithfully consume our newspaper or follow us on social media and want to engage with us in an ongoing, two-way dialog.
That’s not everyone. In fact, most of the people reading this have likely never written a letter to the editor or called the newsroom to commend or complain. I’ve been a faithful newspaper reader all my life. I’ve never done either of those things.
The Bucks County Herald Reader Survey is our big push to reach all of our readers to ask for their help in setting goals and priorities for the coming year.
In my first column as editor-in-chief, I talked about the symbiotic relationship between journalists and the readers they serve, a bond based on mutual trust and respect.
This survey, I hope, will nurture that bond as we ensure we aren’t simply assuming we know what our readers want, or pivoting based on the opinions of a relatively small sample size.
Here’s how you take part.
In today’s print edition, the survey takes up the bottom half of Page A11. I encourage everyone who’s reading a hard copy of the paper to clip it, fill it out and mail it to me at 875 N. Easton Road, Suite 1, Doylestown PA 18902. If you miss it this week, don’t fret. We’ll run it again on Dec. 14.
Reading us online? Go to buckscountyherald.com/reader-survey to fill it out there.
The survey is anonymous. It should only take five minutes to complete.
We ask readers how, and how often, they read the Herald. We provide a series of statements and readers will say whether they “Strongly Agree,” “Agree,” “Neutral,” “Disagree,” or “Strongly Disagree.” We ask readers to rate segments of our coverage on a scale of 1 to 5. We ask what topics they find most and least interesting and relevant and what topics warrant more of the Herald’s attention.
We ask readers to respond by Dec. 31 and, in the interest of continuing to build that all-important relationship between readers and journalists, I’ll write a column in January discussing the results and how we’ll use what we’ve learned in 2024.
Thank you, in advance, for filling out the survey. Telling this community’s stories is a privilege. Your informative responses will help us do it responsibly and effectively in 2024 and beyond.
John Anastasi is Editor-in-Chief of the Bucks County Herald and can be reached at janastasi@buckscountyherald.com.
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