Using analytics to see which stories are the most popular is part of life in many newsrooms. Neil Merrick looks at the risks and the potential of this
Precision tools or click crazy?
I
t is getting on for six years since the big screens were installed in newsrooms at the Cambridge News and other Trinity Mirror titles. Showing how many people are reading online stories at any time, they are, says
Cambridge News editor David Bartlett, part of the furniture. They also reflect the media’s growing fascination with analytics. Advanced tools not only reveal how people find their way
onto news websites but also whether they do it frequently enough to be considered loyal or regular readers. But, in a click-crazy world that leaves editors and publishers with increasing amounts of data at their disposal, is there a risk of journalists being assessed on page views rather than quality? Analytics can throw up intriguing results, says Bartlett. Yes,
people want to read about murder and other crime, but can be more interested in rail timetable changes than anticipated. “It gives you a better feel for what people are interested in,” he says. Occasionally, readers search for a story that has yet to be
written, alerting news teams to a road accident, for example. Three years ago, Trinity Mirror dropped plans to include
‘click targets’ in journalists’ contracts following NUJ opposition. Reporters, stresses Bartlett, “are not targeted on page views”. However, analytics may be used when deciding (based on readership data) whether to run certain types of story. David Higgerson, digital editorial strategy director at Trinity
Mirror, says there are journalistic as well as business reasons for analysing audience behaviour. Stories that attract more readers may be elevated to a more prominent position on a home page or placed nearer the front of a print edition. At the same time, journalists should ask why a story did not
attract more readers. Was it down to the nature of the story – or how it was presented or promoted? “Online journalism shows us that stories stand or fall on their own merits,” he says. Trinity Mirror titles uses Chartbeat and Google Analytics to examine online readership. While Google is a free tool giving readership figures over longer periods, Chartbeat shows how many people are reading a story at any time. Chartbeat is a US firm used in the UK by The Independent
as well as Trinity Mirror. Jill Nicholson, its director of customer education, describes its service as a “content intelligence
14 | theJournalist
platform’ ” that helps online titles build a more loyal audience. It reveals not only how long people spend reading each story but also whether they found a story through social media or a search engine. The platform also shows whether they remain on the site and read further articles. Loyal readers are those who visit a website eight times over a
16-day period, while anyone visiting more than once a month is classed as regular. The key, says Bartlett, is to convert regular readers into loyal ones, while attracting new people. “We are in the business of growing our audience,” he says.
ILLUSTRATION: STUARTKINLOUGH
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