A Conversation with the New York Times Director of Analytics

In today’s digital age, understanding audiences is vital. James Robinson from New York Times shared his expertise with UTS. 

On Thursday 22nd March, UTS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences had the privilege of hosting a conversation with James Robinson, Director of Global Analytics at The New York Times.

Robinson’s talk was titled ‘Knowing your Audience’ and focused on the intersection between social media, analytics and news production and distribution. Robinson also covered some timely issues affecting the digital media space, such as data regulation. 

The highly engaging talk was attended by students studying Journalism and Digital & Social Media, as well as UTS academics and industry professionals. Robinson’s speech was followed by a discussion panel on the present and future state of journalism, led by UTS Communication Lecturer, Dr James Meese.  

Throughout the discussion, Robinson was able to draw upon his extensive expertise in media analytics, including over ten years in a variety of roles at The Times. He first led the web analytics team during the implementation of its digital subscription model, before pioneering the use of audience insights in the newsroom as The Times’ first Director of Global Analytics. 

Guests were particularly engaged by the topic of how analytics are used to measure the success of a story. Robinson challenged the metric of engagement, saying;

Engagement is more than just numbers, it’s an emotional state that’s not a great measurement of success.
 

In his talk, Robinson also debunked many other misconceptions about analytics.

My job isn’t about numbers, it’s about audiences and helping journalists understand the context of their decisions.

Students aspiring to work in the industry were also given some wisdom,

Journalism graduates need to get their heads around analytics and attain the skills so that they can understand not only what works with audiences but why.

We thank James Robinson for sharing his thought-provoking insights on analytics and audiences with UTS FASS community.