Journalism.co.uk reader responses: what we have learned so far from our audience survey

Journalism.co.uk recently put out a reader survey to better understand you, our audience, and what type of content would serve you best. We have pored over the responses, and here are some of the main lessons we have learned so far.

NB: readers were given multiple choices for most questions.

You are early birds

You said you looked to us to set up your day early on, mostly in the first few hours at your desk in the morning (31 per cent), or on the commute into the newsroom (28 per cent).

Newsletters are the surprise package

We wanted to know how people wanted to hear from us.

You said email is the preferred way to get updates about the news industry (73 per cent), in front of social media (66 per cent) and trade press websites like ours (53 per cent).

Cut through the crap with experts and explainers

We wanted to know what types of content you engaged with.

You said that besides the traditional news articles, explainer articles (49 per cent) and expert commentary pieces (43 per cent) were your next favourites.

Keep it practical, please

We wanted to know more about the top user needs of our audience.

You said you wanted practical information that helps you do your jobs (61 per cent), but were also drawn to content that educated you about the latest trends (47 per cent)

Audience engagement top priority

We wanted to know which topics you most cared about.

You said audience engagement strategies mattered most (44 per cent), but digital transformation (40 per cent) was not too far behind.

You also offered up a few extra topics that caught our eye: newsroom culture, gender in the newsroom, non-traditional media careers, and government policy towards journalism, among the lot.

You value community and access

We asked this question: what would you miss if we disappeared tomorrow?

You mentioned a lot of different services, like the jobs board, media courses and Newsrewired conference. You mentioned our journalists by name, like Jacob's podcasts and Marcela's LinkedIn posts. But you also highlighted our community, and this comment really stopped us in our tracks:

"Independent analysis delivered through interviews with people actually working in journalism"

LinkedIn, the preferred platform

We wanted to know what social platforms our audience uses most for work - you know, since social media has been a total whirlwind over the last few years.

LinkedIn came out top of the pile (54 per cent), followed by Twitter (31 per cent) and Instagram (23 per cent).

Something else to add? What are we missing? Let us know by getting in touch with editor Marcela Kunova or senior reporter Jacob Granger

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