It inevitable to avoid relationship with news providers, they know a lot.
Audience analytics is changing the news construction process,
Newsrooms in Qatar prefer journalistic integrity than catering to audience preferences in short run,
Have you ever thought how the number of retweets on a news story, time spent on a news website and number of clicks impacts the editorial decision making in a newsroom? There are literally people glued to a big screen in the newsroom who document the number of impressions, views and likes on the posted content. Their job is to evaluate the data and formulate a report on the most read topics. In technologically advanced newsrooms like Aljazeera, the list of most viewed or circulated content is automatically generated.
This continuous monitoring of the content allows the editors to record the preferences of the audiences and adapt in real time. Alongside, the digital department, consisting of people with specialization in social media communication, recommends journalists to cherry pick words for headlines and advise them on ways to optimize their productions on news aggregating websites such as Google News.
Knowing someone to the core can be meaningful in a romantic relationship but raises certain moral questions when news providers view audience as disaggregated units to maintain traffic. To what extent can you know the audience? Can news organizations sacrifice journalistic integrity to accommodate consumer preferences?
AJ+ use of metrics
Haris Alisic, head of development and engagement at AJ+, communicated that AJ+ uses analytics tools such as CrowdTangle, Tubular, Social Bakers and Tablleau but does not compromise the organization’s journalistic integrity. Tools like Crowd Tangle allow news outlets to compare the longevity of content on up to five platforms simultaneously. “AJ+ remains to be audience centric in the sense that it serves audiences’ interest and not satisfy their sense of sensationalism,” Alisic said.
However, AJ+ is state sponsored and run by Al Jazeera Media Network. Since AJ+ does not actively seek audience satisfaction to generate advertisement, it gives AJ+ liberty to interact with the audiences the way it deems appropriate. “We’re the only news organization that entire countries are trying to shut down,” Alisic added. “We don’t care for the satisfaction”
Use of web and social media analytics can be better understood in environment where news organizations are continuously competing for audience. One such news media is Gulf Times. Gulf Times uses platform embed analytics for social media platform but relies on more sophisticated tools for website such as Alexa and Comscore. Jossy Abraham, head of digital at Gulf Times, told TechTallk that they are at the infant stage of digital integration in their newsrooms. Most important, Abaraham mentioned that they don’t target any specific group of audiences but analyze data on more holistic scale such as Gender ratio.
Gulf Times use of metrics
Abraham added that Gulf Times is not willing to compromise content for audience satisfaction but sometimes they add more interesting topics wider the audience base. “Asa publication, we have our own guidelines for the content we create, but sometimes we have to go beyond certain traditional content and add new topics to acquire and engage new audiences,” he said.
I love Qatar was also reached a number of times to probe them about the use of metrics in their editorial process but they didn’t reply.
It seems like that newsrooms in Qatar are gradually incorporating newsroom metrics and are not willing to overstep conventions of journalism to bucket some additional financial incentives.
In many countries, unlike Qatar, where media is pivoted on algorithms and data, it is inevitable to avoid a relationship with news providers. They will know what they want to because some argue that it is the only sustainable method in modern journalism.
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