Metrics Are Everywhere in Media. Here’s How They Help.

How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Kathy Zhang, a newsroom and product analytics manager, discussed the tech she’s using.

We also use tools like Chartbeat and Google Analytics for the same purposes, because they have user interfaces that nonanalysts can also use to inform their work. Editors use Chartbeat to understand real-time readership of our stories and Google Analytics to pull trends and reports over a longer period of time.

I run Google Analytics training sessions for the newsroom, and something I try to make clear is that learning how to use the tool — in terms of which buttons to click and which settings to modify — is going to get us only so far. Understanding the underlying data and which pieces of it will answer your question will always be more important. Simply figuring out the number of page views any story received is easy. Trying to place that metric in context of what we might expect for that story is more difficult, because many factors play into the page views and reach of what any one story achieves.

We need to consider the promotion strategy behind the story. Did we give the story prominent placement on the home screen? Did our social media team post it to Facebook? Did we share it in any newsletters? We also need to consider the kind of story it is. Is it breaking news? Is it an investigative story? Is it a movie review? The timeliness of the story is another consideration. Is the story pegged to a news event where we would expect nearly all of the traffic to come in on the first day? Or is it a story we would expect more of a long tail for because it’s service journalism or a piece that would sustain steady search traffic?

The tools we use all have their pros and cons. As frustrated as I sometimes get navigating suboptimal user interfaces, they’re all solid tools for the work we do and serve different (although often overlapping) purposes.

But analytics allow us to serve our audience better. Seeing our online readership shift from a predominantly desktop audience to a much larger smartphone audience underscored the need for our product and technology teams to prioritize mobile-first story forms. Looking at page speed allows us to prioritize making our pages load faster so people don’t need to wait to read our stories.

Editors are some of our best analytics consumers. They constantly monitor our dashboards to make real-time judgments about how best to engage our readers. News desk editors modify headlines and packaging to draw attention to stories. Search specialists take advantage of trending search terms to expose our stories to a wider audience. Social media editors follow the conversation and find the best moments to showcase our journalism. Analytics are crucial to the full life cycle of our coverage.

Though many lament that access to analytics can make a publication hyperfocused on page view volume to the detriment of reader engagement, at The Times we’re cognizant of those pitfalls, and we structure our analyses to avoid them. The close partnership our newsroom editors have with the analytics team makes both our editors and our analysts think smarter about what our data tells us and how we can best deliver our journalism.

One of the best things about the Kindle and e-readers in general is their integration with public libraries. Nearly all libraries give their patrons the ability to borrow e-books through an app like Overdrive, Libby or Hoopla. Before I bought my Kindle, I would borrow books from the New York Public Library’s digital library to read on my phone. It’s even better with a dedicated e-reader, because the screen is easier on my eyes and I don’t have other apps to distract me.

I credit the Kindle for getting me to read more than I used to. For pre-Kindle me, selecting the next book seemed like such a commitment. If I chose something heavy and serious but I wasn’t in the mood for it, I would carry the book around in my bag for weeks, avoiding it like an email from an ex I had assured we’d stay friends. But now I can carry several books at once and choose something lighthearted or somber or anywhere in between.