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Digital Journalism
ISSN: 2167-0811 (Print) 2167-082X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rdij20
News by Numbers
The evolution of analytics in journalism
Nicole Blanchett Neheli
To cite this article: Nicole Blanchett Neheli (2018) News by Numbers, Digital Journalism, 6:8,
1041-1051, DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2018.1504626
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2018.1504626
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NEWS BY NUMBERS
The evolution of analytics in journalism
Nicole Blanchett Neheli
Analytics are now embedded in newsroom practice. In a form of participative gatekeeping,
the ability to track how the audience absorbs information is shaping editorial content.
Although there is much discussion that engagement metrics, like time spent, are more
important than pageviews, many advertisers are still more interested in clicks than counting
time, some newsrooms still have pageview targets, and the pageviews metric is often
used as a simplistic measure of reach. As such, digital editors sit cemented to monitors,
working to decipher what stories have or are gaining traction. Using this information,
they choose placement of content, enhance stories, and share stories via social media to
build traffic, then repeat this frenetic cycle in a seemingly endless loop. But at what cost?
How does the focus on metrics affect best practice in the newsroom and, potentially,
information sharing in the public sphere? This article examines the impact of audience
data on practice at The Hamilton Spectator, a local newsroom in Canada, to explore
whether traffic-based metrics and the use of analytics impede the ability to meet journalistic
standards, and/or build bigger, more informed and engaged audiences.
KEYWORDS analytics; audience; boundary work; gatekeeping; journalism; media
logic; metrics
Introduction
Analytics are now embedded in newsroom practice. In a form of participative gatekeeping,
the ability to track how the audience absorbs information is shaping editorial content
in two specific channels: promotional, where real-time metrics are used as the primary
tool in the placement and positioning of content on websites and in social media in order to
instantaneously build traffic; and developmental, where analytics are used in a longer view
to assist with management of resources, story selection, formatting, and future promotion of
such stories (Blanchett Neheli, forthcoming). Although there is much discussion that engagement
metrics, like time spent, are more important than pageviews, many advertisers are still
more interested in clicks than counting time, some newsrooms still have pageview targets,
and the pageviews metric is often used as a simplistic measure of reach. As such, digital editors
sit cemented to monitors, working to decipher what stories have or are gaining traction.
Using this information, they choose placement of content, enhance stories, and share stories
via social media to build traffic, then repeat this frenetic cycle in a seemingly endless loop.
Digital Journalism, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2018.1504626
# 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor &
Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not
altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
But at what cost? How does the focus on metrics affect best practice in the newsroom and,
potentially, information sharing in the public sphere?
Through the lens of media logic, utilizing a bricolage of field, gatekeeping, and
boundary work theories, this research explores the impact of metrics and analytics to
see if their use impedes the ability to meet journalistic standards, and/or builds bigger,
more informed and engaged audiences. Although data gathering spanned several
media outlets in North America and Europe, for this article particular focus is placed on
The Hamilton Spectator, a local newspaper in Canada working to manage the jump to
digital. By looking at trends and anomalies, both positive and negative, in the way
traffic-based metrics are used the objective is to identify transferable analytics practice
that builds scale, while also building informed discourse.
Literature Review
Traditionally, gatekeeping is a term used to describe journalistic practices involved
in the selection of content for public consumption based on the subjective criteria of the
individual journalist, or gatekeeper (White 1950)—a theory modernized by scholars
including Shoemaker and Vos (2009). In contemporary newsrooms, analytics and metrics
identify audience likes and dislikes and are used to varying degrees as a form of gatekeeping
(Vu 2014; Tandoc 2014; Le Cam and Domingo 2015; Hanusch 2017; Christin
2018), along with other measures of popularity such as audience comments and social
media shares (Chin-Fook and Simmonds 2011; Tandoc and Vos, 2016; Duffy, Ling, and
Tandoc 2017). Metrics and analytics are also used by newsworkers as a measure of success
(Petre 2015). Their primary function, though, is to help boost the number of readers
and engagement on websites and, in for-profit newsrooms, to attract advertisers and
increase revenue (Anderson 2011; Heinderyckx 2015; Cohen 2018; Nelson 2018).
However, quantitative studies comparing most-reads or -views to a story’s position
of prominence on a variety of media outlets’ homepages found gaps between
what readers like to read and what journalists choose to showcase, suggesting limited
evidence of audience impact on editorial decisions (Boczkowski and Peer 2011; Lee,
Lewis, and Powers 2014; Zamith 2015). In real time, though, a story with 100,000 pageviews
in total could only have 100 readers/viewers and it is largely real-time numbers
website editors are using to determine placement of content. Promotional gatekeepers
use a toolbox of metrics and analytics systems to ride a story’s wave of popularity and
make it the next story with overall high pageviews. As well, in terms of developmental
gatekeeping, or using audience data with a longer view, whether a story is particularly
popular, or not, can impact the selection of future coverage (Bunce 2017). Therefore, a
surface analysis of the placement of homepage content provides limited insight into
journalistic choices in relation to audience likes or dislikes.
Measuring Worth
There is a long history of media vying for advertisers’ dollars with the use of audience
data (Zamith 2015), but immediate access to numbers is creating real-time discussion
on what is worth covering and/or promoting, and, in some cases, changing the
focus from societal impact to societal interest (Tandoc and Thomas 2015). This is
1042 NICOLE BLANCHETT NEHELI
compounded by the fact that newsrooms are scrambling to go digital first, yet journalism
jobs are being lost by the thousands and there is no transferable digital business
model proven to work (Mitchell and Holcomb 2016; Newman et al. 2017; Greenspon
2017). Meanwhile, centralized ownership of media is negatively impacting information
sharing (Davies 2008; Tiffen 2015), newsworkers are relying more on press agencies
(Phillips 2012), doing less original reporting, and using fewer diverse sources because
of the pressure to continually produce content (Cohen 2015). There are examples of
newsrooms using analytics critically to cultivate strategies that promote engagement
and reader loyalty in the longer term (Cherubini and Neilson 2016; Lichterman 2017;
Davies 2017), or, in other words, developmental gatekeeping. However, in many newsrooms
that are strapped for resources and time, metrics are used at the most basic
level, often resulting in the creation and promotion of content that does little to augment
informed discourse and is glaringly lacking in news value (Tandoc 2014; Phillips
2015). Despite these issues, recent reports suggest mainstream media are still essential
to democracy in the public sphere (Drohan 2016; World Bank 2017; SCCH 2017).
Habermas’s (1991) ideal of a public sphere is often used as a measure of the internet’s
ability to provide a place for free and fair discourse (Papacharissi 2002; Curran and
Witschge 2010). Although technology has made it easier than ever for anyone to have a
voice and share a story (Bruns 2003; Benkler 2006; Allan 2009), a broadening of voices
and perspective within the public sphere seems to be more the exception than the rule
(Fuller 2010; Greenspon 2017), particularly recently. “The democratization of the flow of
information” (Mahler 2016) has become “the democratization of the flow of disinformation,”
with those wishing to intensify the flow using mainstream media as amplifiers
(Faris et al. 2017; Wardle and Derakhshan 2017). “The media’s dependence on social
media, analytics and metrics … makes them vulnerable to such media manipulation”
(Marwick and Lewis 2017, 1). As a result, determining best analytics practice is crucial.
Methodology
Through participant observation of news/content creation/curation departments,
open-ended interviews, reflective analysis, and rudimentary content analysis of websites
and analytics data to gain context for qualitative data, the goal of this research was to determine
how the use of analytics impacts newsworkers and newsroom practice and, through
analysis, what strategies might positively impact public discourse. The original research
question, “Do analytics impact editorial decision-making?” was answered as yes through the
literature review and early stages of data gathering. As a result, questions evolved to
1. How does the use of analytics impact news practice?
2. Do journalists feel their work is impacted by the use of analytics?
3. How are practices developed by the use of analytics challenging the boundaries
of what it means to be a journalist and the definition of journalism?
Data gathering for this article originated from a multi-site, international project that
included four news organizations with differing cultural environments. The aim was not to
categorize the sites into media systems (Hallin and Mancini 2012), but rather provide a
unique opportunity for triangulation and contextualization of data and the development of
widely transferable best practice. For this particular paper, The Hamilton Spectator was
NEWS BY NUMBERS 1043
chosen as a case study as it exemplified key trends observed in relation to real-time, promotional
gatekeeping. Reflexivity was an essential component of both data gathering and analysis
due to my own experience working as a journalist, something that informed
observations of changing newsroom protocol. Participants included members of newsroom
digital teams, managers, editors, reporters, employees from sales and marketing departments,
analytics experts, and technologists. For the wider research, there were 69 participants,
with a minimum of 10 from each news organization, more than 43hour of formal,
semi-structured interviews, and 26 newsroom visits for interviews/participant observation.
To protect the identity of participants, all data was anonymized, then analyzed thematically.
With analytics now playing a role in how journalists shape and show content, analysis
through the lens of media logic was particularly relevant. Media logic places priority in news
production on the use of entertaining formats that attract eyeballs, and therefore advertisers,
over the ability to best share information (Altheide and Snow 1979, 1991). As a result,
economics impact journalistic autonomy (also identified by Bourdieu 1996), with prescribed
news formats allowing little room for context, resulting in narrowed frames of reference
(Altheide 2004, 2013). The goal of this research, however, is not to measure the quality of
the content created or promoted by participants, but rather reveal their perceptions of how
changing practice impacts their work in relation to what Willig (2013) described, referencing
Bourdieu, as “the unspoken, unquestioned, taken-for granted, understanding of the news
game and the basic beliefs guiding journalistic practice” (374), practice which impacts public
discourse. For the purpose of comparing practice with a functional definition of “basic
beliefs,” I use Shapiro’s (2014, p 561) five elements that define journalistic activity:
A. Current or recent events as subject matter.
B. Breadth of audience (which in turn implies a concern for accessible or engaging
language and forms).
C. Attempted ascertainment of factual accuracy.
D. Independence (connoting an arms-length interest in publication itself versus
direct benefit from the consequences of what is published).
E. Involves original work (as opposed to mere linking or replication).
The terms metrics and analytics also need clarification. Zamith (2018) noted they
are frequently used interchangeably, but have different meanings. However, his definitions
did not encapsulate the newsroom practices observed in this research. With input
from research participants, a more expansive definition was developed:
Metrics are units of measurement that reflect a specific element of audience behavior;
analytics encompass the analysis of audience data as a means of performance
appraisal on existing content and the development of hypotheses to improve audience
engagement in the future; analytics systems are platforms specifically designed to
aggregate, display, and assist in the reporting and analysis of audience data.
Findings
As mentioned above, data used in this study were gleaned from a larger project.
For this article, however, shared findings primarily focus on promotional gatekeeping,
related to the website of the Canadian local newspaper The Hamilton Spectator.
1044 NICOLE BLANCHETT NEHELI
A Local Mainstay
In publication since 1846, The Hamilton Spectator is a fixture in its community
and showcases its history on its walls, which are decorated with photographs and front
pages from years gone by. However, along with most Canadian news media, The
Spectator has seen significant job cuts due to revenue shortfalls, signified by empty offices
and desks in the newsroom. Participants frequently expressed concern about their
own and the paper’s future. The Spectator is owned by Torstar Corporation and is one
of six dailies and “more than 80 community newspapers in print and online” run under
the umbrella of Metroland Media Group (Torstar.com). One employee described
Metroland as “a very nimble and aggressive company” (S1, personal communication, 17
January 2017), actively looking for diversified ways to stay afloat, including the centralization
of many services. At the time of my research The Spectator building housed
Metroland’s copy editing unit, which served about150 publications, and acted as a flyer
printing and distribution hub. The Spectator’s digital team ran its own website, thespec.com,
as well as the sites of outlets in two other cities. Tightening budgets, however,
were impacting journalistic practice. A senior manager said because of limited
resources, they no longer “act as stenographers” at local news mainstays like the school
board and courts (S7, personal communication, 11 April 2017). Although those interviewed
expressed pride over content still being produced in the building, often using
the example of the award-winning Code Red series that highlighted the impact of
income on health care, they also stressed everyone was working beyond capacity, and
for those working on the digital team, metrics played a central role.
The Pull of Pageviews
At The Spectator, pageviews were the priority for the digital team. This is not
unusual. Despite discourse that suggests shallow measures like pageviews are no longer
of consequence (Fischer 2014), the pageviews metric is still the one most tracked
by newsrooms (International Center for Journalists [ICFJ] 2017). The focus on pageviews
at The Spectator resulted in a different editorial bar for the web. “Material that would
not be deemed really acceptable … in the print product” (S7, personal communication,
11 April 2017) was used online to build traffic. This led to respected journalists making
editorial decisions based on the potential for clicks over any type of news value. One
participant described her feelings about posting a celebrity sex list that went viral:
It still makes me cringe … you feel yucky posting it … I still try and beat that story
today just to overcome my own shame about it. But again, the audience obviously
on that day really wanted that story. It’s not something I’m proud of but it
happened and we did well that day (S16, personal communication, 26 April 2017).
As described by several participants, “doing well” for the digital team at The
Spectator was defined by the number of pageviews attained and real-time progress of
this endeavor was monitored using the analytics system Chartbeat. The importance of
pageviews to the digital team was driven by monthly website targets instituted by its
corporate office. These targets fed into an annual goal of increasing overall pageviews
by a specific percentage point. Those on the team received daily traffic reports via
email, plus a “fulsome weekly and monthly report” (S6, personal communication,
NEWS BY NUMBERS 1045
11 April 2017). These reports were not shared with the entire newsroom due to perceived
lack of interest.
Referring to The Spectator and local newsrooms like it, a representative from
Chartbeat interviewed for this study said, “It’s not that they don’t realize that quality
content is better than clickbait. It’s just, they haven’t figured out another way to sustain
their business in the long term, given the decline in revenue on the legacy side” (CB1,
personal communication, 14 April 2017). Although The Spectator’s share of digital
advertising revenue was on the upswing, it only accounted for one dollar to every four
brought in by its print product, one to five if including Classifieds advertising (S18, personal
communication, 27 April 2017). There was widespread acknowledgement by
management that there was no long-term plan to bridge this gap.
“Static is Death”
My observations showed efforts to sustain the business at The Spectator resulted
in a certain sense of desperation to meet online traffic goals. One participant said,
“static is death” on The Spectator site because updating stories leads to more pageviews
and “ … the more pageviews, the more advertising impressions, the more the
advertising cycles through the site … and the more opportunity there is to get more
revenue pushed into that cycle” (S2, personal communication, 17 January 2017). This
strategy is contrary to Shapiro’s (2014, 561) element of independence requiring “armslength
interest in publication itself versus direct benefit from the consequences of
what is published” but one that certainly promotes “breadth of audience.”
Watching one employee work was similar to watching a busy traffic cop trying to
control flow at a congested, metropolitan intersection. She continually scanned two
monitors set up in front of her, curating from a sea of available content,1
selecting
which stories to place in prominent positions on the website, enhancing content by
changing the headline or picture to encourage more pageviews, and promoting it on
social media. Most content was left to “flow” through the site; however, some stories
were “locked” into positions of prominence largely based on the top ten stories in
terms of real-time most views, or “concurrents,” on Chartbeat. Stories that did not hold
traffic were unlocked after approximately 20 minutes and allowed to filter through, a
practice described by Tandoc (2014, 571) as “de-selection.”
Traffic Boundaries
Although staff at The Spectator, based on interviews and observation, were very
supportive of each other, using metrics to determine which stories received the most
promotion online caused discord. One participant said, “We’re paying journalists a lot
of money to be technicians” (S1, personal communication, 27 March 2017) because
digital editors used numbers to make decisions and were rarely creating original work,
a missing element of journalistic activity according to Shapiro (2014). As explained by
Gieryn (1983) in relation to science and expanded upon in current journalism literature
(Carlson 2015; Deuze and Witschge 2018), shifts in responsibilities and roles can cause
conflict relating to the professional boundaries of who does what.
Boundaries between those working on the digital team and those primarily
focused on reporting were also evident in points of view as to what constituted as
1046 NICOLE BLANCHETT NEHELI
“clickbait” and what should be promoted on the website. The following two quotes
illustrate such polarisation: “I think we could probably do a better job at promoting stories
that we think are important on the website as opposed to promoting stories that
we think will just generate pageviews” (personal communication, S12, 19 April 2017).
“ … people tell us that’s what they want, and the numbers tell us that’s what they
want. And if people want to read that, then why would we not give them what they
want to read?” (S2, personal communication, 17 January 2017).
The focus on traffic had widened the online target audience at The Spectator.
Although its print version had a strong local mandate, there was a broader, “eclectic”
or “water-cooler” focus on the website because as one participant explained, “the only
way for us to achieve traffic growth is to find, publish, and promote what we’d call viral
stories … ” (S6, personal communication, 11 April 2017). This meant even though
reporters were encouraged to file more frequently to help continually refresh the site,
they were sometimes frustrated that their stories did not appear in a timely manner or
were buried on the website, despite extra efforts which could include missing the
opportunity to perform basic functions like using the bathroom. There was also concern
if/when publication of the paper stopped, the type of content being promoted on
the website would lead to a loss of the local coverage The Spectator was valued for
and had built its reputation upon, something reflected in its own data. Despite the
push of “viral” international stories at the expense of local, audience data encompassing
all of 2016 showed only one such story made the top 20 in terms of pageviews,
and there was none in the top 20 for the first four months of 2017 (S18, personal communication,
3 May 2017). Local stories were irrefutably more popular.
Discussion
Although real-time metrics can be all-consuming, there is evidence that stories of
import sometimes take longer to build views than those veering closer to clickbait
(Christin 2015). There is also research to suggest that improving story quality can boost
pageviews (Banerjee 2017; Hindman 2015), particularly in what Anderson (2004)
describes as the long tail. Further, at The Spectator, with no prompting, a sales employee
said quality content like the Code Red series, previously mentioned, sold advertising
because it guaranteed readers (S10, personal communication, 11 April 2017). There could
be alternate ways to boost audience numbers and meet the demands of advertisers on
the website, rather than bending to typical media logic and pushing “viral” stories that
make journalists “cringe.” After my data collection, there was what could be seen as a
positive2
sign of change at The Spectator. S2 reported that although they still had pageview
targets, they were moving towards more of a “subscriber-based model” (personal
communication, 26 October 2017) and, as such, there would be less focus on traffic.
Conclusion
As data from The Spectator suggest, the use of metrics is having significant impact
on news environments. As well, if observations are broadened to the wider journalistic
community, although there is much evidence to suggest that pageviews are not the
“best” metric in terms of building a loyal audience, it is clear that there is a need for
NEWS BY NUMBERS 1047
more honest discourse surrounding the importance traffic metrics still play in the average
newsroom, and how analytics might be better used to help shape relevant content.
Analytics and metrics can limit information sharing if used solely to commodify
the audience. However, if used on a deeper level, they can equally help build and inform
the audience. Perhaps The Spectator, and similar organizations, could better measure
pageview targets with a longer view of audience data, and use such data to develop
content and strategies to optimize and amplify, not just post, original stories that have
local significance but wider appeal, such as The Spectator’s production of a well-received
podcast series on an infamous local murder (Thompson 2018). This would feed the
cycling of ad impressions and, in the future, help local papers like The Spectator fulfill historical
commitments to serve their communities, with or without a print product.
NOTES
1. Content created by Spectator employees; other Metroland outlets; other news
organizations The Spectator has content-sharing agreements with, such as The
Washington Post; and news agencies.
2. Some perceive the shift to subscriber-based news as a negative as it might limit
information sharing (Newman 2018).
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Nicole Blanchett Neheli, Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced
Learning, Faculty of Animation Arts and Design, Ontario, Canada. E-mail: nicole.blanchettneheli@sheridancollege.ca.
ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-
9444-2018
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