| Issue No. 32 | Delivering Your News Wisely | July/August 2004 |
| Newswise Links |
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• Newswise Home • About Newswise • Search Newswise • Contact Directory • Media Subscribers |
| Subscribing Reporters | |
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| SciWire | 1845 |
| MedWire | 2076 |
| BizWire | 746 |
| LifeWire | 1219 |
| DailyWire | 1363 |
| Suggestion Box |
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| If you have any comments or suggestions about how Newswise can better serve you, please contact us. |
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To view your individual hit counts for July (final) and August (preliminary), as well as overall site statistics, click below:
(For your previous monthly reports, please see the sidebar at right) |
| Does News Release Packaging Matter? |
| This month we discuss the influence of delivery and packaging on your news releases. Read below for more details. |
| About this Report |
| In this report, we've included information about the influence of delivery and packaging on your news release, feedback from journalists, and success stories from participating institutions. We encourage your feedback (see suggestion box). It helps us to evaluate Newswise and make changes to better suit your needs. We look forward to hearing from you. |
| Journalists Respond |
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| Michel Rochon, Radio Canada Mark O'Brien, NBC 29 |
| Success Stories |
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| University of Michigan Health System Iowa State University Elizabethtown College |
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| Archived Reports | ||||||||||||||
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| For your reference, we've archived your previous monthly reports here: | ||||||||||||||
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Measuring the Influence of Delivery and Packaging on Readership of News Releases |
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The information management system at Newswise is designed to be effective both for you to distribute your news and for journalists to manage this information. One aim of this system is to make packaging of information more transparent by building content into a clear and consistent context. This enables journalists to quickly see what an item is about (is it medical news, is it research news, is it embargoed, is it published, what is the source, etc.) and consequently to read text based on their interests and news sense. Unlike older delivery methods, in which packaging issues — such as style of envelope, print color, letterhead, day of week, etc. — were subjective considerations outside the margins of the content itself, the Newswise system delivers on the principle that content comes first, while packaging should make that content more accessible. New delivery technology has an added advantage: it allows us to quantitatively assess some of the issues affecting readership. Institutions contributing news items to Newswise often ask us what the best day of the week, time of day, or time of the month is to contribute a news release. They also are concerned about the location of their news within the Newswise Wires. We have examined readership data (hit counts) to answer quantitatively some of these questions. Day of Week Delivery First, the hit counts for all science and medical research stories contributed in a given month were examined to see if date of contribution influenced hit counts. The total hit count for all stories submitted in July 2004 was divided into groups based on the day of the week they were submitted. The hit counts for all stories in all five groups (M-F) are averaged and compared in the table below.  These data demonstrate that day of submission has no dramatic correlation with increased hit count. The average hit count for each day of the week is fairly level. Position in Newswise Wires We also examined whether position within the Newswise Wires affects readership. In other words, do stories at the top of a wire receive more hits than stories at the bottom? To do this we looked at all science and medical research stories contributed during July 2004 and correlated hit counts for stories with the stories' position. We looked at positions 1-18 because multiple stories were contributed for those wire positions during the month. We discarded data for three stories with disproportionately high hit counts.  While there is some scatter in the data, as would be expected, the line is fairly linear and level. Position in the wire does not significantly affect readership. These data present strong quantitative evidence that readership of news releases on Newswise is not influenced by certain marginal or packaging issues, such as release date or position within the wires. We already know, from previous analysis, that research stories have the best readership by the news media. These are followed by feature stories, with announcements trailing behind. This is not surprising; the data confirm common sense. Content is the most important influence of readership. Readership of all research news articles is uniform, and readership rates vary based on interest and newsworthiness of each story. Having a story delivered via Newswise Wires provides an opportunity for readership that is equitably distributed across all days of the week and across the entire wire. Reporters are reading the wire and selecting stories from every position in the wire and from wires throughout the week. |
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