Last week, we asked readers to tell us what you thought of our Town Meeting Day coverage in a short survey. More than 250 people from across the state responded, providing important insights that will inform our reporting moving forward.
Key takeaways from what you told us:
- 40 percent of respondents said our coverage was very helpful in understanding how to participate in Town Meeting Day this year. 30 percent said it was somewhat helpful.
- We asked which topic was most important to respondents. The results in order of popularity:
- Municipal elections
- School governance
- Town Meeting Day format and how to participate
- Retail cannabis
- Municipal infrastructure
- Other
- About 60 percent of respondents said our coverage was extremely effective or very effective in meeting their information needs. However, the remaining respondents felt we were only somewhat effective (23 percent), not so effective (9 percent) or not at all effective (5 percent).
In survey comments about what we could do better next time, feedback themes included requests for more coverage of small, rural towns, especially in Southern Vermont, earlier advance reporting of issues on the ballots, and deeper coverage of local candidates running for elected office.
We also heard collective nostalgia for the usual interactive nature of Town Meeting Day, as well as gratitude for the coverage provided by hyper-local newspapers in towns that have them.
We are grateful to everyone who participated in this survey. Your feedback is invaluable and helps us better serve community information needs.
While the survey is now closed, please feel welcome to email us at admin@vtdigger.org with any additional thoughts about Town Meeting Day 2021 or our reporting.
If you missed our coverage of Town Meeting Day 2021, you can find all that reporting here.
