News publishers are leveraging data to form a deeper understanding of their audiences. Amalie Nash, lead of the INMA Newsroom Transformation Initiative, said many organisations have adopted more nuanced metrics like quality reads and reading time, with some even disregarding pageviews unless a reader spends a minimum amount of time on the page.

“They’re paying very close attention to how deep people are engaging with their content,” she explained.

During the recent INMA Newsroom Transformation Master Class, media leaders from NTM, McClatchy, and The Green Line shared how these deep insights are facilitating efforts to become more relevant to their key audiences.

A culture that sticks

In recent work with Stuff, Esra Dogramaci, a digital leader and consultant from Sydney, Australia, found the newsroom was producing plenty of stories, but most were underperforming.

Journalists were focused on daily metrics without stepping back to see trend: “I asked them to ask a few simple questions: What’s working? What do you think is not working? And what would we be able to do better?”

She also introduced a “news diet” exercise, asking staff how they consumed news themselves. The answers revealed blind spots — few referenced platforms like TikTok or Instagram as news sources, even though audiences increasingly do.

“This was an interesting exercise,” Dogramaci said. “If everybody is drinking from the same fountain, you’re not going to be able to represent your audience in the best way, especially if you're looking to expand and get, let’s say, a younger demographic or a more diverse demographic.”

By setting clear performance thresholds and involving editors in defining what success should look like, Dogramaci helped the newsroom move from reactive data use to proactive, performance-engineered journalism: “If you want something to stick, if you want people to come along with you, they do need to feel like that they are a stakeholder and involved in that process.”

NTM prioritises younger readers

As NTM in Sweden looked at how to grow its subscriber base, it became apparent that the company needed to shift to a younger mindset.

Jens Pettersson, head of editorial development at NTM, said data revealed 82% of subscriber pageviews came from readers over 50 — a segment he jokingly referred to as “grumpy old men.” Only 18% came from the younger target group.

That led to a bold decision to stop measuring total audience metrics and began tracking only engagement from readers under 50.

To guide newsrooms on this new approach, NTM created a detailed playbook with examples of successful and unsuccessful articles. A punchy review of a popular restaurant might overperform with younger readers, while coverage of art exhibitions in the archipelago — typically favoured by older audiences — might underperform.

“We try to have these clear examples on how to use the data,” Pettersson said. And whilst NTM’s editorial strategy now centers on seven prioritised topics — identified through analysis of 85,000 articles — he emphasised the topic alone isn’t enough to drive engagement.

“Covering the right topics is important but not the most important thing,” he explained. “What actually will determine engagement that is the angle or the twist you decide to take on the topic.”

Some stories sell themselves, like a headline about a new bar or a store going bankrupt. But most require effort: personalisation, emotional resonance, and practical relevance.

“They are more picky,” Pettersson said of younger readers. “In most cases, you need to make an effort to find the best angle to touch the reader emotionally.”

Data sparks editorial conversations at McClatchy

Paul Berry, senior editor for news analytics and insights at McClatchy, walked through an experiment that tracked how often subscribers returned over a four-week period.

“About 23% of people showed up one day out of the seven-day week, and 16% showed up two days,” he explained. “We built a composite index …this particular chart translates to 3.65 days out of seven that people came back.”

Rather than obsessing over raw percentages, his team used the index to spark editorial conversations. For example, why did sports coverage attract readers mostly on game days? Could more consistent food content turn one-day visitors into three-day regulars?

“So we were able to start moving that number by creating the strategies out of this,” Berry said. “Looking at the six- or seven-day-a-week return visitors — what are their habits — versus the one- to two-day-a-week readers, and how can we facilitate some of that.”

The Green Line creates action journeys

Anita Li, editor-in-chief and publisher of Toronto’s The Green Line, shared insights about how to understand an audience through surveys and what she calls “action journeys.”

The action journey consists of four steps across four weeks:

1. Explainer: A published piece is an explainer that looks into a systemic problem that affects the city of Toronto.
2. Feature: This published piece reports on potential solutions to the problem in any format.
3. Event: “We host an event where convene sources from the story, members of the public, experts, like community organizations, just anyone who is interested to come and talk about solutions to the problem,” Li said. Community members are later surveyed.
4. Crowdsourcing solutions article: The data collected from the surveys is collated and the top three solutions are shared with the public in hopes they have enough information to take action.

The first action journey The Green Line published was in early 2022 about how to navigate the pandemic in Toronto. Li shared a more recent example that highlighted the cost of rent in Eglinton Crosstown, particularly as the area has undergone decade-long construction of a light rail station.

“This is an example of hyperlocal journalism that we produce that is service-oriented and solutions-focused.”

Photo credit: Anat art.

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