We heard you: Local journalism makes a difference

If you’re going to work hard at something, you want what you do to matter.

Journalism is hard work, and at The Daily Herald, we want our local reporting to serve Snohomish and Island counties well. To find out if it does, we encouraged you — our readers — to take a Listening Survey in July.

We designed the survey so you would have plenty of opportunities to fill in the blanks with your feedback. Wow — you said a lot, and we’re glad you did. Your comments help us better understand what’s important to you and the role you see local journalism playing in strengthening our community and democracy.

We heard from more than 1,000 individuals. Some said they have been subscribing to and reading the Herald for decades. Others had lots of opinions about what is in the newspaper but admitted they no longer read it.

From all that we heard, my biggest takeaway is this: You care about the local news that’s reported in The Daily Herald because you care about your community. That’s a great place to start when you want to serve a community even better with trusted, local journalism.

Here are a few more highlights from the Listening Survey.

Those who took the survey selected safety and crime as the most important issue affecting their community in Snohomish County followed closely by government accountability and climate change. Lagging just a bit below those concerns were economic and housing issues.

How well does The Daily Herald cover those issues? Those that selected safety and crime gave us an average score of 48 out of 100 on a sliding scale that ranged from “not at all” to “very well.” You gave us a score of 41 for government accountability, 59 for climate change, 48 for the economy and 57 for housing. Our coverage of social justice issues scored highest at 61 followed by coronavirus at 60.

More than half of you who took the survey took the time to tell us how we could do a better job of covering your community – and what we’re doing well and should continue doing. We organized your feedback to both questions into common themes.

The most common theme in response to what we could do better was “balanced reporting,” but that’s where the commonality ended. The comments were extremely diverse, ranging from “present conservative points of view” to “just give us the true story” to “be inclusive of all members of the community.” They also referenced content on the opinion page and in the national news section to local stories and everything in between.

Like local newspapers across the country, The Daily Herald serves our community in a variety of ways. From a list of options, nearly 75% of survey respondents selected “provide residents with information to make informed decisions” as our essential role. More than half said our role was to “serve as our community watchdog” and “tell our community stories.”

Providing the information you need, holding power to account, and uplifting the stories of our community requires reporting that is accurate, credible and timely.

The survey results show you give the Herald high scores for accuracy and credibility — two essential qualities for trusted, local journalism — and a slightly lower score for timeliness.

Our last question asked you to tell us what else you’d like us to know. Once again, we gave you a blank box to fill and, once again, your comments varied from delivery issues to wide-ranging views on “balanced reporting.” We also received a lot of validation that, while we might not be perfect, we’re doing something you value.

I said at the beginning of this column that journalism is hard work. That hard work by everyone at The Daily Herald can use some encouragement every now and then, so I’m going to highlight just a few of my favorite comments.

“I’m glad you’re still in the fight. Our democracy relies on quality local journalism.”

“I enjoy and benefit from the excellent coverage the Herald gives to local issues. I just wish there was more of it!”

“Keep up the good work.”

Thank you — and please join us for a conversation

We are grateful to everyone who took the time to take our Listening Survey.. We have much to consider from all the comments we received.

If you’d like to learn more about what we heard through the survey — and share additional feedback — please join us for one of three community conversations we’re hosting online from August through October.

Executive Editor Phil O’Connor will lead our first conversation about local journalism from 4:30 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. Wednesday. Register today at heraldnet.com/conversation-august. We’re still listening.

You don’t have to wait for a community conversation or a survey to give us feedback on how we’re doing. You can always send an email or leave a voice message to tell our news team about the impact their stories have on you and your community.

Brenda Mann Harrison is the journalism development director for The Daily Herald. She writes “Local News Impact” to raise awareness of how community-supported journalism benefits Snohomish and Island counties. You can learn more – and donate today – at heraldnet.com/local-news-impact. Or contact Brenda at brenda.harrison@heraldnet.com or 425-339-3452.