Our first annual editorial survey ran for five weeks, starting in December and ending in January, and with it came a boatload of information to inform our editorial decisions and content strategies …
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This column has been updated to correct the total number of responses to the survey.
Our first annual editorial survey ran for five weeks, starting in December and ending in January, and with it came a boatload of information to inform our editorial decisions and content strategies in 2025.
About 73% of you read The Leader in print (38%) or print and online (35%), the rest read it strictly online. That isn’t a surprise, but still noteworthy from 10,000 feet, because it bucks the national trend toward online.
Responses came in the opposite, with more than three-quarters submitting surveys online. As a non-scientific survey, anyone could fill it out. Some people filled it out more than once, something revealed with a bit of scrutiny of IP addresses. There wasn’t a ton of that, however, and we’re more inclined to appreciate readers who care enough to vote twice than the opposite.
The online survey was much easier to do than the print version, which had to be clipped and delivered to the paper. A personal plug for the paper versions, however: It was truly enjoyable to sit around a table and read them, even when they were critical.
We had 565 responses in total. The most overwhelming conclusion: Readers want news and investigative news. Online, 53% listed news and 15% listed investigative news, as their number one choices among the seven options. Print varied slightly, with news getting the No. 1 slot and investigative news No. 4. (Briefs and localized state news were second and third, respectively, in terms of print responses.)
Input on opinion content was a sea of contradictions, which also tracks with national surveys. News consumers consistently say they don’t want opinions but click opinion content with great frequency.
More than half of The Leader’s online respondents listed opinion as their fifth, sixth or seventh choice of content.
But at the same time, the content contained in “Opinion, Creativity and Perspective,” our name for the section, was broken out in another category, where it received high marks. Listed first for a lot of folks were letters to the editor (45%) and guest columns (36%). Police and Sheriff logs, and the calendar feature, are perennial favorites and did not disappoint.
A pleasant surprise for me was how many people liked poetry and other creative content that appears occasionally in The Leader. More than 50% scored it first, second or third in that section. Publishing it sporadically, which is how it arrives here, was a bit of a risk. News organizations typically stick to news. At the same time, these contributions seemed to fit given the personality of Port Townsend and Jefferson County. The survey, including numerous comments, particularly in print surveys, bears out that decision.
What readers think of our family of local columnists essentially broke into three categories. Scott Doggett, the former Los Angeles Times reporter who writes about animals and our relationship to the natural world in “Wild Neighbors,” was singularly tops. The bulk of us, including this column, scored a healthy 67% or better. That’s how many people checked that they were extremely, very or somewhat interested.
Sports generated divergent responses, with a majority not ranking it high on the list, while many people commented that they wanted more of it. “More about schools” was a frequent admonition, as well.
Forgive me for the whiplash that comes next, because it might seem contradictory: We don’t have any expectation that all readers will like all elements or that they will agree on everything. That would defy human nature.
We do have a lot more to go on in terms of expanding things you like. Thanks for participating.
Reach Meredith Jordan at editor@ptleader.com