When Data and Intuition Converge

How is it that, in an age of sophisticated audience data, there continue to be widespread uncertainty and inconsistency throughout the news industry surrounding what people want and expect from news? This chapter explores this question by examining the relationship of journalists with audience measurement data. While the previous chapter examined the differences within journalism’s imagined audiences, this chapter explores the origins of journalism’s imagined audiences. In doing so, it identifies the way these differences emerge—and, more importantly, how they persist—in an increasingly data-driven news culture. The author’s overarching argument is that audience measurement data are neither as straightforward nor comprehensive as the discourse surrounding them suggests. Instead, these data continue to leave ample room for interpretation, and the interpretations vary from one journalist to the next.