IRIN Readership survey findings

Nearly 60% of readers said IRIN's reports helped to raise awareness of humanitarian issues, and half the readers said they regularly used IRIN as a source for their own reports and briefings, ranging from policy briefs and academic research papers to articles and radio programmes. These were some of the findings from IRIN's first annual readership survey, conducted from 15 to 28 February 2002 to gain feedback from IRIN's readers on their preferences, use of IRIN material, views on current and future reporting and other services. The survey - designed by an independent consultant familiar with IRIN, who also analysed the results and prepared the report - was also meant to gain insight into how IRIN reporting benefits its readers. Some 91% of replies came from subscribers who receive their reports directly from IRIN's e-mail service. Direct subscribers represent 12% of IRIN's overall e-mail readership. The remaining 9% of responses were from non-subscribed readers who generally access IRIN reports through other distribution channels such as the IRIN website, internal office distributions, newspapers, newsletters and other specialised web and e-mail services. Most respondents (70%) read at least one IRIN report per day. Another 23% had read an IRIN report that week. Many said they regularly forwarded reports to colleagues or friends: 52% said they had done so within the two previous weeks and 80% within the previous one-month period. If this is reflective of general subscriber behaviour, 93% of subscribers regularly read IRIN reports and about 9,600 of them forward such reports to colleagues or friends at least once a month. About 80% of respondents said an IRIN report week had raised an issue they were unaware of in that week. Around 90% indicated that their main motive for reading IRIN was to 'keep up to date' with events. "I use it consistently - every day - for my on-going research on the democratisation process in Africa," one reader wrote. "It's irreplaceable, especially if access to other sources is limited [..] even if unlimited." Some readers also said they used IRIN reports to corroborate news from other sources. Many said IRIN reporting saved them a significant amount of time that would otherwise have been spent researching and gathering information. The poll has given IRIN valuable insight that could be used for the design and implementation of future readership surveys. These will be specially designed to provide editors with feedback on individual IRIN services and enable comparative analyses between the latter. [The survey can be accessed at http://www.irinnews.org/profiles/survey2002.doc]