Surprises Tested and launched only last year, the Daily Reader Report Card already has proved a useful complement to other reader research. It also has provoked considerable discussion among editors and reporters, who seem invariably surprised each day by one or more of the results. I would have thought that, one, an A-1 story would have beaten a local front story, but also that rescue squads should have touched a lot more readers than a story on the congressman. The editorial page staff has been chagrined to discover lower opinion-page readership on Sundays than on weekdays. We re following this trend closely.
Editors often wonder about readership of inside sidebars accompanying long news stories.
One report card the other day showed 61 percent of respondents reading some or all of a sidebar that appeared on an inside page. This compared favorably with 47 percent who reported reading any items on the Sports section-front that day. Readers like to talk Daily customer feedback, we ve discovered, can be a stimulating experience. Recruiting, too, has gone well. Many readers have been very excited about doing it and pleased to be asked, says Wendy Zomparelli, the publisher s assistant who headed the team that set up the report card.