Readers Speak: The Results of WireTap Survey Are In

By Kristina Rizga, WireTap. Posted July 27, 2006.

WireTap readers have spoken. We are deeply grateful to hundreds of our supporters for participating in our survey two weeks ago and suggesting additional features for our new, upcoming site. Your thoughtful ideas, enthusiasm and kind words have inspired us to keep improving WireTap.

The results suggest that you like what we're doing already: 60 percent of you rated our "quality of writing and analysis" and "variety of issues covered" as "excellent." Among the issues you're most passionate about, the Iraq war took the lead with 58 percent. Following closely behind, 53 percent of our readers listed race and civil rights as issues they most are most interested in reading about on WireTap. Forty-two percent listed stories about corporate responsibility and a living wage as their top priorities, and 30 percent were most interested in our coverage of youth organizing and activism.

When asked to choose the top five issues to add to WireTap's new site, 60 percent of readers said they wanted more stories on environmental issues and 48 percent asked for a sustainable lifestyle section. Forty-five percent would like to see more international and cultural coverage. Some of our readers suggested that we cover a broader range of musical genres to add to our frequent coverage of hip hop and activism. Thirty percent wanted to see more information on media, technology and activist campaign alerts. WireTap readers also said they were interested in seeing more "blog posts by young activists" and short videos.

We are especially grateful to a third of those surveyed who took the time to write in their own ideas -- not listed in the survey -- for improving WireTap. Some of the features that our readers suggested repeatedly were more personal stories by people whose lives are affected by the Iraq war, growing rates of youth incarceration and failing public schools. Some readers wanted to see more activist roundtables and debates focused on timely issues and challenges.

The vast majority of our readers (65 percent) visit WireTap weekly and stay in touch with us through our weekly email newsletter. When asked to describe themselves, the descriptions that came up more than any other were activists (48 percent), politically independent (42 percent), environmentalists (38 percent), professionals (37 percent) and writers (35 percent). (We were also pleasantly surprised that three of our prizes were mailed to readers living in South Korea, Argentina and Japan.)

We thank the many WireTap readers who took the time to tell us how much they like the site and appreciate hearing young people speak for themselves, and that they are looking forward to seeing us grow. We are grateful for all your suggestions and are working hard to implement as many of them as we can. Stay tuned for the new site in September!

Kristina Rizga is editor of WireTap — AlterNet’s youth-oriented project. To send your own feedback, story ideas or to request writer's guidelines, email her at Kristina_Rizga@wiretapmag.org.

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