I’m here to tell you how to make my job easier. I know, I know — I got this job four days ago (I haven’t even started yet!), and I’m already asking favors from the readers of the DTH.
But I promise this one is worthwhile. While we like to think that we do a good job of serving our readers and writing stories that you need, data proves us wrong. Many students care little about the DTH. And that’s fine. That’s your right.
But I — and the rest of the staff — would like to ask you what we can do better.
This week, The Daily Tar Heel is conducting a long-overdue readership survey, due to the diligent efforts of our engagement director, Sarah Lundgren, and our general manager, Erica Perel. We’re targeting the students that don’t read us, whether they’re members of Greek life, STEM majors, transfer students, graduate students or club athletes.
The questions we’re asking are more than a simple “How do you consume your news?” Ultimately, getting people to read the DTH is more than figuring out digital consumption habits, or clickthrough rates, or any number of “new media” terms that national and local newsrooms look to for clarity in an age where traditional revenue models no longer make sense.
When I started working for the DTH, I didn’t care about clickthrough rate. I cared about learning how to be a better writer, and about making friends in my field and, most importantly, about contributing to the newspaper that I read cover to cover when I got my orientation issue in the mail.
I want other people to be as enthusiastic about this paper as me, and that’s going to require me and my wonderful, passionate, intelligent staffers caring enough to recognize that not everyone feels that way already. It’s going to require us asking what matters to you about UNC — how you make friends, where you hang out with them, what this University has provided for you and what you resent about it.
If you’re reading this admittedly deep cut of a column, you are probably not the target audience for this plea. But your one friend in a sorority might be. Your pre-med suitemate might be. Your group project member in ROTC might be. (And for any non-students reading, don’t worry: we’re conducting more of these surveys in the future!)
So please, tell them this: if you want to see a DTH that matters to you, one that very literally takes your perspective into consideration, send me an email at ralanis@live.unc.edu.
