The City Wire reader survey: Content pleasing, but comments troubling

A recent online survey of The City Wire readers suggest that 56% of readers have an annual income of more than $100,000, and 52% are between the ages of 46 and 65.

The City Wire was launched in November 2008 with the goal of providing more indepth and consistent content on business and political issues and events and cultural (arts, entertainment, and support groups) happenings.

Between Nov. 1, 2008 and Nov. 30, 2010, The City Wire attracted more than 360,000 visitors and had more than 2.5 million pageviews. About 64% of the visitors were from Arkansas and Oklahoma, with 6.1% of the visitors from Texas and New York and California bringing about 3% of the visitor count. Foreign visitors accounted for about 4% of The City Wire visitors, with Europe the source for about 1.3% of foreign visits.

And while almost 69% said they would not change a thing about The City Wire, the website did receive some criticism — especially with respect to comments.

“Comments are getting better but are dominated by contrarians,” noted one critic.

“I get frustrated by those who hijack the comment section,” noted another, while one survey taker encouraged The City Wire to do away with comments.

The City Wire is the only media platform in the Fort Smith area that encourages reader input by allowing them to comment on stories and post a member blog.

“Comment moderation has been an ongoing issue for us. There is a fine line between allowing the community to have wide-open input, and protecting that openness from those who abuse it,” said Tom Kirkham, publisher and co-owner of The City Wire. “We have tweaked the process and will continue to do so. We also are considering the option of blocking those who blatantly take advantage of a platform we created in the hopes of encouraging a more respectful and intelligent community discussion.”

Other criticisms includes the font size (too small) and not enough local sports news.

On the positive front, readers said The City Wire provided business, political and cultural news that is not available from other area media outlets.

The survey provided data on the type of people who read The City Wire.
• More than 62% travel frequently.
• More than 55% regularly attend movies or theatre productions.
• 92% of readers dine out at least once a week, and 78% dine out more than once a week.
• 42% of readers are female.
• 79% are married.
• 75% say they frequently read the business stories, about 69% read political news and • 55% read community/cultural stories and photo galleries.
• 49% of readers visit the site at least once a day, and almost 14% check The City Wire more than twice a day.
• Almost 95% say The City Wire is easy to navigate.

“I want to thank the hundreds of readers that took the time to complete our survey. Your enthusiastic response proves that The City Wire is an important source for news in the area,” said Kirkham. “The comments many of you made will be used to make The City Wire even better as we roll out new features. We were happy to find that 97.3% of you find The City Wire easy to read, but we will not stop until we hit 100%.”