BRITISH COLUMBIA ——

Criticism, ideas in survey replies

This issue of the paper is the last in our
50th anniversary year. Throughout the
year, we have celebrated those 50 years of
the working class press in B.C. with two
special issues, our unprecedented $100,000
financial drive which — thanks to you —
met with resounding success, and publica-
tion of Fighting Heritage, a book featuring
four significant labor struggles in the 30’s,
and the early history of our paper.

_ But for the staff at the Tribune, the most
important event of the year was receiving
your replies to the questionnaire that we ran
in our pages five times starting in October.

Many of you took the time to answer the
14 questions, and one-third of you who sent
in the questionnaire also took the time to
Write one or two page letters setting out
clearly your opinions on the paper and sug-
gesting how we might improve the quality
of the paper.

It took some time to sort through the
Tesponses, but here are the results of our
Survey: what we learned about you from
your answers to questions 1 through 5; and
what you told us about the Tribune in the
Test of the questionnaire.

Of those who sent in replies, 61 per cent
were less than 64 years of age, the majority,
36 per cent, being in the 29-40 age group;
and 39 per cent were 65 and over. Two-
thirds of the replies were from men, one
third from women.

As to your occupational status — 30 per
cent were employed full-time, six per cent
employed part-time, 21 per cent were
unemployed, six per cent students, and 39
per cent were retired.

On the question on the length of time as a
subscriber to the paper, the majority, 54 per
cent, had been subscribers for less than five

- years, 45 per cent for more than five years. We

received two replies from non-subscribers.
Most of you spend between half an hour
and two hours reading the paper, 23 per

- cent spend less than 30 minutes and nine per

cent more than two hours.

Question 6, which asked you to list which
pages of the paper you read first, second,
third or fourth, revealed that the most of
you read page one, and then page two
which is our civic coverage. However, divid-
ing the responses into those over and under
65 years of age, the picture changes. For our
readers under 65, there was an even split
between those who read page one and then
page two and those who turn directly from
page one to our labor coverage on page 12.

The next question asked you to rate some
of our regular features. As we anticipated,
Harry Rankin’s column was a clear favor-
ite, followed by People and Issues. Each of
the features received a full range of
responses with the number of “excellent”
ratings always higher than “adequate” or
“poor”. Our editorials were the only feature
which received more adequate and poor
ratings than excellent.

Responses to Question 8, where we asked
for ratings of our coverage of various areas,
revealed the greatest praise and the sharpest
criticism of the paper. Our coverage of the
peace movement received the highest acco-
lades, with not one poor response, and the
number of excellent ratings far outweigh-
ing those who felt the coverage was ade-

quate. Our coverage of civic politics and
trade union affairs was also rated highly.
But our coverage of the women’s move-
ment was strongly criticized with 35 per cent
rating our coverage as poor, and 40 per cent
as adequate. Cultural reviews were also crit-
ized, but quite a few of you took the time to
write in “not enough coverage” together
with your adequate or poor response.

Responses to the next five questions were
most gratifying for us. Some 85 per cent of
you believe that the paper has improved
over the last two years, find the layout
attractive with enough photos, the stories
readable and a good balance between news
and commentary. Over 90 per cent consider
the paper essential reading for active people,
but only 65 per cent feel that the Tribune has
broad appeal.

And it seems that most individual copies
of the paper get read by more than one
person; 67 per cent of you said that you pass
copies of the paper on to friends or co-
workers.

Only a few of you failed to give us any
comment under Question 14, and most of
the comments we received were favorable.
A representative. sample of some of those
comments include: “Keep up the good
word”; “a bright light in a dark world of
news reporting;” “appreciate the paper
very much” and “a newspaper to be proud
of.”

We must note here that it was our readers
over 65 who gave us the most laurels. Those
of you under 65 who sent in comments were
somewhat more guarded in your praise,
with responses such as:

“The paper, generally, does an excellent
job but the editorials and some of the inter-
national news analysis contain too much
dogma.”

“The direction in the last couple of years
is good but has not yet been completed.”

Generally, after boiling down all your
comments and suggestions for improve-
ment of the paper, there are a few areas that
received the most comment.

First, as previously mentioned, your crit-
icism of our inadequate coverage of
women’s issues and the women’s move-
ment. We have to agree with you here. We
will take up your suggestions and attempt to
improve this area of the paper over the next
year.

Second, you requested more book and
movie reviews, including increased cover-
age of local cultural events. '

And third, the on-going problem of late
delivery by the post office. We have tried to
remedy this problem from our office but
have had little success. We can only suggest
that you contact your local post office and
register your complaints with them.

All of the questionnaires made interest-
ingTeading and we would like to thank you
for taking the time to send them in to us.

Throughout our 50 years of publication
it has been the support and dedication of
our readers that has kept the paper coming
out week after week. Your comments and
suggestions will be invaluable to us over the
next few years as we try to improve the
quality of the Tribune and maintain the
proud tradition of 50 years of working class
journalism.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 18, 1985 e 9

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