ConCiencia Summative Evaluation

ConCiencia News was the first Spanish-language news service in the United States focused exclusively on health, science and environmental news, providing free of cost news stories to a diverse array of Hispanic media including 100+ newspapers and magazines, top Hispanic web portals, and almost 150 Spanish-language radio stations. Each news story features original content developed by SRF journalists, and Hispanic researchers are often features to serve as role models for the public. The summative evaluation focused on two primary audiences for the Spanish-language stories: 1) the professional journalists/editors who use these stories, and 2) Spanish-speaking readers of science content in newspapers. Methods included in-depth phone interviews with journalists and focus groups, newspaper surveys and 4 month follow-up telephone interviews with Spanish-speaking newspaper readers (all methods were conducted bilingually in English and Spanish). Limitations, paticularly regarding sampling procedures, are discussed in the full report. Findings indicate that the editors who were aware of and use ConCiencia were satisfied with the content and find the stories to be useful for their readers; they could be even more useful by having a more regional or local focus. For the newspaper readers, when prompted most could recall some specific content, and there was an indication (through self-report) that the stories were impacting their attitudes about a particular topic. Additionally, many of those interviewed said they did talk about the stories to family or friends, and some changed their behaviors in a small way as a result of reading the stories. The appendix of this document includes interview protocols (English and Spanish) and surveys (English and Spanish).