We recently asked our subscribers for their thoughts about Positive News and were overwhelmed by the response. So many of you think that it is really important to have positive stories to counteract the negativity that so often pervades the mainstream media. Lots of readers talked of feeling inspired and connected to the wider network

We asked subscribers how they felt about the extra supplements that we have produced for Peace and the Earth Summit. Ninety per cent liked receiving the special supplements. Eighty seven per cent said they were happy to have a slightly slimmer version of the quarterly paper.

This time, however, we did not produce a special supplement because we found ourselves faced with several dilemmas. The first was that the drama on the world stage was unfolding so rapidly, with hopes being raised and dashed daily, that there was no time to bring one out. Secondly many of the stories flooding into our office could hardly be considered positive, but they did contain crucial information, not all of which were reaching the mainstream media. We felt that by creating a networking email newsletter giving summaries of stories with websites to follow up on gave people the choice of whether they wanted to be informed or not.

We have published a few of these stories on pages 10 and 11, and we are inviting our members, our subscribers and distributors to join in if they want to. The information is also available on our website for non-subscribers. As Positive News goes to press it looks almost certain that there will be a war but we have a sense that the way people are uniting for common causes is going to continue. The global community for peace that has arisen is the beginning of a new era.

Positive news survey of subscribers ñ Questions
The general trend of the subscribers is agreement to every question. This gives a positive perspective that both the readers and we share a positive outlook for positive news. Please refer to a copy of the questionnaire for questions and layout.

Results and Statistics of the 5 questions

Yes No Other (left blank) No + Other Total Probability
Question 1 258 16 12 28 286 <.001 significant.
Question 2 254 19 13 32 286 <.001 significant.
Question 3 250 25 11 36 286 <.001 significant.
Question 4 211 19 56 75 286 <.001 significant.
Question 5 256 17 13 30 286 <.001 significant.
n=286 k=yes p=0.5 q=0.5

The significance was calculated by comparing yes’ to no + other’ on a binomial distribution

Total number of subscribers = 5000
No of Questionnaires sent = 5000
No of Questionnaires returned = 286
Sample size (n=286) Confidence at a 95% level
Assuming the sample is random n=286 caters for 750

Approximate percentages represented in the pie charts

% 1 decimal place Yes No Other
Question 1 90.2 5.6 4.2
Question 2 88.8 6.6 4.6
Question 3 87.4 8.8 3.8
Question 4 73.8 6.6 19.5
Question 5 89.5 5.9 4.5

Notes: ñ The sample of 286 can only represent 750 subscribers. (a sample of 357 would be sufficient to represent 5000 subscribers.)
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