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Given the aforementioned goals and objectives, it is incumbent on the military to find out if they are meeting these standards. This study looks at how effective the military is at determining whether the goals and objectives are met concerning installation newspapers and whether the intended audience echoes military findings.

All services maintain a regulatory requirement to conduct readership surveys to determine if the installation newspaper is viable and meeting goals and objectives of the command. Typically, these surveys are conducted every 18 months. Given the fact that over 175 installation newspapers exist within the continental U.S. and overseas, the researchers used a local installation’s newspaper to determine findings, make generalizations and begin a baseline for future research.

The researchers chose Tinker AFB, located in Oklahoma City as the installation, and the Tinker Takeoff, its official newspaper, as part of this study. The Takeoff is published weekly, and 24,000 copies are distributed to base personnel and their families every Friday. In keeping with military regulations, a readership survey (random) was recently administered at Tinker AFB to determine if the base newspaper met stated goals and objectives.