Abstract
This article aims to present a debate over the increasingly complex and widespread use of measurement indicators and performance of digital content in the journalistic industry, considering the case study of La Nación, one of the leading news institutions in Argentina. The paper reconstructs the introduction and architecture of metrics measurement in the newsroom of La Nación, and the journalists’ perceptions and experiences regarding these organizational changes. The focus will be on the adoption of the Score, an algorithmic metric developed in-house at La Nación, designed with journalistic input and eventually modified to include economic factors. The findings confirming the tensions between professional and commercial logics produced by adopting digital metrics in the newsroom; and suggesting that journalists experiences metrics as strong disciplining influence. All this is involved in an uncertain context implicating the financing of Argentinean digital media along with the decline in the traditional journalistic business model.
Highlights
Over the last decade, measuring data systems have gained prominence in newsrooms and marketing departments in media industries
The focus will be on the adoption and evolution of the Score, an algorithmic metric developed in-house at La Nación, designed with journalistic input and eventually modified to include economic factors
The introduction of metrics data in newsrooms cannot be understood without considering the digital context which has driven and that drives deep changes in the work processes occurring in media industries
Summary
Over the last decade, measuring data systems have gained prominence in newsrooms and marketing departments in media industries. I present an analysis of their impact on the working organization processes and journalists’ self– perception in the Argentinean Newspaper La Nación. While some journalists have aligned with the ‘metric approach’ offered by the direction, other writers and editors-in-chief claim to have gone through instances of frustration and that their ‘creative work’ has been affected. They state that they are subjected to work control, given that metrics are applied to measure readership consumption, and the journalist’s individual performance. Founded in January 1870byformerPresidentBartolomé Mitre,ithas had a consistent conservative ideological tone and a loyal following among the country’s upper and upper-middle classes (Boczkowski, 2010)
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