Resdership Survey What readers like – and don’t like – about The

You, our readers, are the final judge of whether we’re doing our job properly — covering the mining industry in a way that provides the information you need. But it’s often difficult for our writers and editors to know how readers feel about the job we’re doing. That’s why earlier this year we took a random sampling of 2,000 readers and asked them, in some detail, what they thought we were doing right and how we might improve our coverage.

The response was overwhelming for a mail-back questionnaire. Twenty-one per cent of those who received our questionnaire responded and half of those took the time, at our invitation, to add comments.

Over-all, it was apparent our readers are pleased with our coverage, but there are areas where more analysis is wanted. As we respond to this survey, we hope to create a better newspaper that you, our readers, will be able to make greater use of.

According to those who responded, our readers are about equally divided between those who are employed directly in the mining industry (44%) and those who are not. A surprising number are very loyal subscribers — about 20% have read the paper for 20 years or longer — but many are more recent subscribers with 70% having taken the paper for less than 10 years.

Virtually all of them — 98% — feel we do a good to very good job of covering precious metals. By the same token, however, some commented that we devote too much attention to gold:

“Yes, yes, yes … gold is great. Big Money, big news. But what about the stalwarts, industrial minerals or mineral processing,” said one reader. “Gold is commanding too much attention. I suggest you give coverage to each mineral proportionally to the amount of revenue it generates,” said another.

However, 88% of readers feel we do a good to very good job of covering base metals and 59% say the same of our industrial mineral coverage.

As well as the general news that makes up a large portion of the paper, we also asked readers to rate our regular departments.

The best read department is our Investment Comment, which consists of excerp ts from published analyses of mining companies from reputable stock brokerage firms. Just 5% of those who responded to the question say they don’t read the column while 63% say they read most and 32% said they read some.

Almost equally well-read is our Metals Page. Again, just 5% say they don’t read the Metals Page while 57% read most of it and 37% read some (some percentages do not add up to 100 because of rounding).

Editorials are also a well-read feature in the paper, a gratifying response. Again, only 5% say they do not read our editorials. Fifty-two per cent say they read most editorials and 42% say they read some. Editorials, however, raised a wide variety of comments:

— “We love the editorials in The Northern Miner. They tell it like it is.”

— “I am disappointed with your extremely one-sided editorials.”

— “Your frank comments on your country, on mine (the U.S.A.), and on the rest of the world are refreshing and so true.”

— “Northern Miner … editorials border on fascism.”

The most popular department which 71% of those who responded say they read most, is the Stock Market Page. Another 21% say they read some although 9% say they don’t read it at all.

The least popular columns are the dividends table which 32% of those who responded say they don’t read at all, our list of meetings which 30% say they do not read and our tax column, not read by 30%.

When it came to suggestions about improving our coverage fewer than one per cent of respondents say they want to see less of any department. However, many — about 73% — ask for more company profiles and property site visits while about 65% want more investment comments.

In the chart at the bottom of the page, the response to each of 15 regular departments is detailed in graphic form.