As media companies evolve their data strategies, they are also transforming the newsrooms themselves.

One significant trend is the simplification of data delivery. Instead of overwhelming staff with dashboards and PDFs, organisations are streamlining what metrics are shared and how they’re used to set actionable goals. This includes integrating data into daily workflows and aligning metrics with specific newsroom roles — for example, homepage editors tracking different indicators than reporters or section editors.

Amalie Nash, lead of the INMA Newsroom Transformation Initiative, pointed to the future of metrics in a multi-media environment, where success may be measured across formats beyond text. She underscored the importance of translating data into meaningful insights that inform journalism and editorial priorities.

“There’s a lot of work as we go ahead,” she noted. “It’s very interesting to see how companies are thinking about data as they move forward.”

During the Newsroom Transformation Master Class, media leaders from The Times and The Sunday Times, The New York Times, Stuff, and Rede Gazeta shared how their newsrooms are shifting their internal processes to better understand and act on data.

The Times and Sunday Times company leans into iteration

By 2023, The Times and The Sunday Times had evolved to include three different data sources. Janice Pereira, head of editorial data, said everyone was using something different and the metrics and numbers were slightly different.

“And you can imagine the frustration and confusion and questions that would come to my desk as at the time the sole analyst in the newsroom,” Pereira said. “The solution when I took on responsibility for newsroom data was to launch an initiative called TED. And TED stands for Times Editorial Data.”

This year, TED 2.0 is taking the newsroom even further in their data journey with more sophisticated tooling and richer engagement metrics.

The Times and The Sunday Times learned a lot of lessons throughout their data journey. A lot of which are what not to do. Pereira said one key lesson is to aim for progress, not perfection.

This means it’s more important to get the basics right like the data architecture, consistency of logic, making sure reports load quickly and focus on metrics that people actually understand and align with the editorial mission.

“We did that with TED 1.0. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked,” Pereira said. “It rebuilt trust and it showed the newsroom the value of having their own data tool, and that gave us permission to keep building.”

They’ve now brought in a dedicated data product manager and team to work on 2.0.

“Don’t wait for perfection. Build something simple, get it into people’s hands, and watch how they use it and then iterate,” Pereira said. “Because if you hold out for the perfect model, you’ll never launch anything and you’ll miss the opportunity to learn from your newsroom."

The New York Times builds education into its newsroom

A more data-leaning newsroom is a better informed newsroom, beyond vanity metrics or stats that might be vague without context. From the perspective of Hayley Arader, who manages the data and insights team at The New York Times, a newsroom with an effective analytics culture is hyper aware of language and how content might be counted.

For example, when discussing news coverage and how much time readers spent, Arader avoids the terms “over” or “underperforming.” Instead, they focus on understanding what type of writing and coverage to prioritise based on a variety of data.

In addition to custom data visualisations, all staff have access to the audience metrics dashboard and a FAQ page. Journalists who have additional questions or need more detailed explanations can refer to the list of FAQs, which helps to demystify the analytics and educate the newsroom at large.

One of the reasons Arader and her team are able to build, share and educate the journalists at The Times is because there is leadership buy-in. The masthead not only believes in creating a data analytics culture, it supports it through newsroom-wide emails and communications promoting the use of its audience metrics dashboard and prioritising metrics that benefit everyone.

“Creating feedback loops and continuing to iterate really helps,” Arader said. For example, if a publication has news coverage around food and a desk editor notices unique insights based on reader engagement, sharing that information can be instrumental in tweaking a model or interface that better supports the coverage and how users engage with it.

Stuff sheds print traditions

Keith Lynch, editor-in-chief of Stuff Digital in New Zealand, explained how the company recalibrated its coverage. The turning point came with an audit of 20,000 stories published between January and June.

“This threw up some slightly concerning data,” Lynch said, as it revealed 62% of all content produced had fewer than 15,000 pageviews. Even more concerning, 32% of the most underperforming stories came from Stuff’s own journalists — not syndicated content.

This wasn’t just a numbers problem; it was a cultural one. Many reporters, steeped in print traditions, were leaning into formats that no longer served digital audiences. The newsroom needed to challenge its assumptions and rethink its editorial approach.

At the beginning of 2025, Stuff’s newsroom operated largely as a generalist team. Reporters covered a range of topics depending on the day’s news cycle. But the data showed specialisation was essential, so Stuff reorganised its newsroom into two core editorial pillars.

The first focused on live and breaking news, with dedicated teams for real-time coverage and sports. The second centred on original and essential journalism, with specialised teams for investigations, lifestyle, and daily beats.

This shift wasn’t just structural; it was philosophical. Editors worked to define what “original and essential” really meant across verticals.

In sport, it meant leaning into live match coverage and fostering audience participation. In politics, it meant non-partisan reporting that explained how policies affect everyday lives. In investigations, it meant resourcing deep dives that held power to account.

“We also saw that our audience has an awful lot of interest in explainers and fact checks, so we specifically made a conscious decision that these are not extra,” Lynch said.

Rede Gazeta builds new routines into its newsroom

To encourage new and current users to increase engagement with the brand, Rede Gazeta in Brazil had to redesign the user journey and experience, and deepen reader loyalty while building repeatable value habits.

Eduardo Lindenberg de Azevedo, director of innovation, said the hypothesis being that these combined efforts executed consistently over time would result in increased user engagement and retention.

To execute on the proposed strategy required a newsroom that was fully aware and accountable to the overall plan. That meant re-educating everyone about the yearly budget with the engagement framework top-of-mind, as well as developing agile workflows.

To make the data more manageable, a simple daily KPI was introduced to everyone.

A new routine was established within the newsroom with the creation of daily meetings between editors and the newly-formed product team. This particular change ensured more tailored conversations about audience performance, local SEO trends, distribution strategies and more were had.

According to de Azevedo, most of the quantitative success could be attributed to “an experimental user interface that had an endless scroll” that was built in-house: “We built a separate Web page that has short articles, and you can endlessly scroll as if you’re on social media.”

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