Hello, friends,
If you’re like me, you’ve probably noticed that it’s weird to give presentations on Zoom because you can’t see how the audience is reacting as you speak. I find that I am uncomfortable when I cannot subtly adjust my tempo or tone to what I perceive in the audience—whether it is the quiet of attentive listeners or the subtle rustlings of bored attendees.
I feel the same way about this newsletter sometimes. Because we don’t track anything about our readers—whether they open the email, or how long they spend with it, or if they leave it unopened in their inbox—I sometimes feel as if I have no idea if you, dear reader, are restless or engaged.
And so I’m wondering if you all would indulge me in providing some feedback about what you like and what you don’t like about this newsletter. I’ve put together a multiple choice form that you can fill out. And of course, since we built the form ourselves, it doesn’t track anything about you other than the feedback you choose to provide.
You can take the survey here.
But if you prefer not to use the form, you can just email me by hitting reply. Here are the things I am curious about. (These are the questions in the survey form.):
What is your favorite type of Hello World newsletter?
- Q&As with experts, like this one with a legal scholar who studies the Facebook Oversight Board
- Behind-the-scenes accounts of how we do our journalism, like this one on why we don’t do on-background conversations with corporate spokespeople
- Deep dives into our big investigative projects, like this one on how and why we built Blacklight, a privacy forensics tool
- I like them all equally
- I actually like some other stuff you have done better (Please share!)
- I am looking for a different experience entirely (Tell me more!)
What would you like to see more of in the newsletter?
- More Q&As with international, rather than primarily U.S., experts
- More focus on tech policy proposals
- More interviews with real people—like the librarian who talked about how he was coping during the pandemic—rather than experts
- More focus on how we do our data-driven investigations
- Something else (Please suggest!)
What topics are you most interested in?
- Privacy and Surveillance
- Auditing Algorithms
- Workers’ rights in the information economy
- How tech impacts marginalized groups
- Coverage of the Big Tech companies
- Other (Please share!)
What do you think of the length of the newsletter?
- Too long
- Too short
- Just right
Who are you? We would like to learn about our readers while respecting their privacy. Any demographic information like age bracket, occupation, city or state of residence, or gender would be helpful.
And finally: Would you be interested in answering some additional questions if someone from The Markup reached out to you directly? If so, please email social@themarkup.org to set up a confidential conversation with our audience team.
As always, thanks for reading.
Best,
Julia Angwin
Editor-in-Chief
The Markup