Published: August 08, 1997
Last Updated: October 16, 1997
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—How the Survey Was Done 1. What is the average daily circulation of your newspaper? 2. If your newspaper's average daily circulation is over 50,000, please indicate which category 3. Which category best describes your job? 4. How many newspapers have you worked for? 5. What was the most significant influence on your decision to work in journalism? 6. When did you first decide to choose a newspaper career? 7. What first attracted you to journalism? 8. Did you write or work for a campus newspaper in college? 9. Did you take an internship at a newspaper while you were in college? 10. What about your collegiate academic record, if you attended college? 11. Let's get an idea of your involvement with the Internet. Which describes you? 12. Many newspapers are publishing on the Internet. Has your newspaper done so? 13. Generally, how do you compare your present job with your most recent previous job? 14. Does your present job meet the expectations you had when you took it? 15. What is the most satisfying aspect of your job? 16. What is your biggest complaint with your job? 17. Have you personally experienced repetitive stress injury? 18. On the whole, what kind of rating do you give the quality of your newspaper? 19. What's your general sense of where your paper is going? 20. My sense is that our newspaper and our readers . . . 21. In your own perception, the editorial page positions of your newspaper usually are . . . 22. Taken as a whole, how good a read is your own newspaper to you personally? How do you rate your newspaper's coverage in the following areas? 23. Government and politics 24. Business and economics 25. Crime 26. Education 27. Sports 28. Entertainment 29. Young people 30. Minorities 31. Gays and lesbians How do you feel the following groups are treated in your newsroom? 32. Young people 33. Middle-aged people 34. Old people 35. Men 36. Women 37. People of color 38. White people 39. Gay men and lesbians 40. How would you describe your newspaper's commitment to ethnic and race diversity in the newsroom? 41. What do you think about your newspaper's commitment to ethnic and race diversity in the newsroom? 42. How would you describe your newspaper's commitment to gender diversity in the newsroom? 43. What do you think about your newspaper's commitment to gender diversity in the newsroom? 44. How would you describe your newspaper's commitment to fairness on sexual orientation workplace issues in the newsroom? 45. What do you think about your newspaper's commitment to fairness on sexual orientation workplace issues in the newsroom? 46. Following are some possible improvements in newsroom working conditions. If you were in charge of your newsroom and had the authority to make any changes you wished, what would be your number-one priority? 47. Please indicate which one of these is the most significant problem in your newsroom. 48. What about feedback on the work that you do? Following are several means of communication between editors and staff. Please indicate how common each kind of communication is in your newsroom. 49. Staff meetings 50. One-on-one discussions. 51. In-house seminar 52. In-house newsletter 53. Online bulletin board What's your own feeling about each means of communication? 54. Staff meetings 55. One-on-one discussions 56. In-house seminars 57. In-house newsletter 58. Online bulletin board 59. Some newspapers have policies that allow managers to hire both members of a couple to be employed in the newsroom. How do you feel about such policies? 60. How do you rate your immediate supervisor overall? 61. What is the major strength of your immediate supervisor? 62. What is the major weakness of your immediate supervisor? 63. Does your immediate supervisor listen to your ideas and sugestions about the newsroom? 64. If repetitive stress injury has occurred in your newsroom, how do you rate your newspaper's response in the most recent instance? 65. Compared with five years ago, what is your sense of what's happened to your newsroom budget, relative to your company's revenues? 66. How adequate is your current newsroom budget to enable the newsroom to do a good job of covering the news? 67. Looking into the future, what is your predicition about how well newspapers will be doing ten years from now? 68. What's your anticipation about the future of newspaper on the internet? 69. Get information to the public quickly. 70. Provide analysis and interpretation of complex problems. 71. Provide entertainment and relaxation 72. Investigate claims and statements made by the government and political candidates. 73. Investigate claims and statements made by businesses and other institutions. We'd like you to rate the importance of a number of things that newspapers the size of the one you work for do or ty to do today. 74. concentrate on information that is of interest to the wides possible public. 75. Provide information that is of interest to specific segments of the public. 76. cover community and neighborhood news. How do you feel about the following appraoches to journalism 77. A newspaper reports on alternative solutions to community problems, pointint out trade-offs 78. A newspaper conducts town meetings to discover key issues in the community and follows up with stories focussing on theses issues and some possible solutions. 79. A newspaper polls the public to determine the most pressing community issues, then tries to get the candidates to focus on these issues. 80. A newspaper develops enterprise storeis, supported with editorials, to focus public attention on a community problem and tres to help the community move toward a solution. 81. How do you feel about a reporter, photographer, or copy editor joining a nonpolitical community group, so long as the jounrlist does not cover the group? Examples might be the PTA, a neighborhood association, a group that aids the disadvantaged, etc. 82. How do you feel about the top editor joining such community organizations? We'd like to learn a little bit about your thought process in newssituations. Please consider the following hypothetical: As a City Hall reporter, you receive documents indicating that the mayor was treated for a drug addiction five years ago - before he took office. You call the mayor, who confirms the story but asks that you not write it up. Your source has given the same documents to theree other news outlets in your city. 83. Do you pursue and publish the story? At this point in the questionnaire a number of questions were asked concerning the reasoning behind the answer given in Question 83. Because these findings are not presented anywhere else in the report - but will be presented in a forthcoming article - the figures are omitted in this appendix. 129. What's your view about your advancement possibilities with your own newspaper or newspaper group? 130. Do you feel advancements at your company are made primarily on the basis of: 131. What's the highest position to which you aspire in newspapering? 132. Do you aspire to work for a newspaper that is larger - or smaller - than the one that currently employs you? 133. Picture yourself five years from now. How would you feel if you were doing the same kind of work that you do now, not necessarily at the same newspaper? 134. What's your view about your advancement possibilities within journalism in general? 135. What is the single biggest obstacle to your career advancements? 136. If you left the newspaper business, which one of the following do you think you'd most likely be doing? 137. If you left the newspaper business, whcih one of the follwing would be the most important factor why you left? 138. At what age do you plan to leave newspapers, either through a career shift or retirement? 139. What one of the following best describes your personal status? 140. If married or living in a significant relationship, does your partner work outside of the home? 141. If your partner works, whose income is larger? 142. If you have children living at home, in what age groups do they fall? 143. In which of the follwoing groups would you place yourself? 144. What is your political orientation? 145. How would you describe your religious beliefs? 146. How would you describe your involvement with your local community? 147. How satisfied are you with your personal life? 148. If you could change one thing in your personal life, what would it be? 149. Please tell us which of the following in your highest priority: 150. If you had it to do over again, would you choose newspapering as a career? 151. Did you grow up in the area where you now live or work? 152. Are you a college graduate? 153. Do you have a graduate degree? 154. What is your age? 155. What is your sex? 156. What is your sexual orientation? | Table of Contents |