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June 29, 2008

To the APME Sounding Board:

Forty-three newspapers nationwide took part in this month's survey of 2008 political campaign coverage, a record response to a Sounding Board questionnaire.

The 15 topics suggested by committee co-chairs Peggy Bellows and Bob Stover measured use of AP political stories in newspapers and Web sites, compared AP political coverage to other services and sought input on AP's main stories, sidebars and fixtures.

Many editors augmented responses with detailed comments about their needs. Results and suggestions will be scrutinized by AP's senior editors for planning election coverage in coming months.

Highlights of the survey:

■ Gauging use of AP national political stories, 73.8 percent of respondents said they're printed on front pages once a week or less, 23.8 percent said 2-3 days a week. Many said they'll increase usage as elections draw closer.

■ Use of AP state political stories on Web sites: 32.5 percent said daily, 12.5 percent said 5-6 days a week, 25 percent said 3-4 days a week.

■ 78 percent cross-reference political from news pages to Web presentations, and 87 percent have a separate landing page on Web sites for political stories.

■ For AP's alternative political coverage, Race Rundown is used by more than half of newspaper respondents, and Poll-2008 and Fact Check each by more than one-third of respondents. On Web sites, Fact Check, Poll-2008 and Adwatch are used by a third of respondents.

■ Survey respondents listed Gannett, 48.8 percent, LA Times, 46.5 percent, and McClatchy, 44.2 percent, as leading alternative services for national political stories, with WXPost and NY Times each used by 34.9 percent.

■  A slim majority of respondents – 53.7 percent – said they want AP to provide in-depth pieces on the mood of the nation; 46 percent said they couldn't use these pieces because of tighter news holes.

■ A strong majority – 74.4 percent – want AP takeouts about key battleground states.

■ For stories comparing candidates on specific issues, answers were unanimous: all 42 said yes. Many called it a critical part of AP coverage.

■ Nearly 62 percent said they want poll results on the horse-race aspects of the presidential election.

■ 63 percent said they could use daily fact boxes on presidential candidate's travels and appearances.

For full results, click on this link in your browser to get "View Summary," then scroll down to the questions:

www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?
sm=cJyyMIJrzLGiJw3BRJ%2bEJuGvl3cGYxM9GMACcrhuPo8%3d

Individual responses can be accessed by clicking on "Browse Responses" atop that page.

This survey will be posted at the Sounding Board page of the APME Web site

An attachment with selected comments from survey participants can be downloaded in PDF format by CLICKING HERE (11 pages).

Thank you for taking part.

— David Minthorn

Dave Minthorn, manager, AP News Administration, coordinates the questions and answers. Newspaper editors wishing to suggest a topic can send an e-mail to Minthorn at dminthorn@ap.org.

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