News by Numbers

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.