ABSTRACT
Journalists no longer have to guess which stories audiences are reading—web analytics homepages display a website’s top pages based on views in real time. Web analytics has allowed journalists to confirm their news sense by quantifying their audiences. In many instances, this leads to journalists feeling good about them, especially when metrics support their editorial guesswork. Since journalism can influence public discourse and opinion, it is an attractive target for those seeking to amass political power. News organizations and their journalists operate under layers and layers of influences, and web analytics is where many of these different influences meet. In developing and introducing web analytics to journalism, the technological field is also introducing its own logic to journalism. The metaphorical wall between a news organization’s editorial and advertising departments speaks of the idealized divide between pursuing journalistic and business goals. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
