From red desert rocks to green alpine meadows, Utah offers hikers an embarrassment of riches. For a regional newspaper like The Salt Lake Tribune, local hiking content should be a natural fit.
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Not really, according to data from content analytics platform Chartbeat.
“We’ve written about these hikes,” says Ian Swenson, director of news and audience analytics at the Tribune. “We’re not getting (much) response there.” Readers looking for hiking content, it turned out, were visiting sites devoted to the subject rather than the local paper. “We know there’s a huge potential audience for it, but we’re not capturing that audience. So maybe we should spend our attention somewhere else.”
That kind of insight—concrete, sometimes counterintuitive, and immediately actionable—is what drew The Salt Lake Tribune to Chartbeat and kept them there. For a mid-sized nonprofit newsroom balancing editorial ambition with financial sustainability, real-time analytics offered a way to turn hunches into evidence and evidence into better journalism.
This is the story of how one newsroom learned to use data not as a replacement for editorial judgment, but as a sharpening tool for it.
A nonprofit newsroom looking for sustainable coverage
Founded in 1871 as The Tribune & Utah Mining Gazette, The Salt Lake Tribune converted to nonprofit status in 2019—the first legacy newspaper in the country to make that transformation. The move came after years of financial turmoil that had rocked the newspaper industry since the dawn of the internet.
Today, the Tribune operates with around 30 reporters and 100 total staff, supported by a mix of subscriptions, advertising, and philanthropic donations from foundations and individual supporters. It’s a “decently mid-size newsroom,” in Swenson’s words, one that has won Pulitzer Prizes but still faces the same resource constraints as regional outlets everywhere.
Swenson’s role straddles the editorial and business sides of the publication. He uses analytics to help reporters and editors shape coverage “so it reaches the audiences that they’re trying to reach,” while also monitoring what drives subscriptions and donations. The goal is not to chase clicks for their own sake, but to understand reader behavior well enough to make smarter decisions about where to invest limited reporting resources.
Rethinking what “resonates” actually means
Before Chartbeat, the Tribune—like most newsrooms—relied on a mix of intuition, experience, and delayed metrics to gauge whether stories were working. What happens to an article once you hit publish? Do readers find it? If they do, do they come back for more?
“That data is incredibly crucial,” says Brad Streicher, a customer success manager at Chartbeat. “Rather than just writing articles and then sending it out into the internet—it’s kind-of blind from there as far as what happens. Having data to make strategic decisions in your newsroom is something that Chartbeat solves.”
For the Tribune, that meant examining assumptions about what readers wanted. Take restaurant coverage: without analytics, dining reporters tended to focus on profiling the chef. “What we find when you look at the analytics is, those types of stories don’t get read very well,” Swenson says. Focusing the headline and lead paragraphs on what the diner will experience—the food, the atmosphere, the value—brought in more readers.
“I’ve definitely worked with several dining reporters over the years where that transition makes a big difference,” he says. That doesn’t mean ignoring the chef’s story. It just means drawing in the reader first. “While they’re in there, they can read this great profile about the chef.”
Doubling down on religion coverage
The hiking versus religion contrast became a touchstone for how the Tribune approached coverage decisions. In Mormon-dominated Salt Lake City, religion coverage performed consistently well according to Chartbeat data. Hiking content did not.
The newsroom responded by expanding its religion beat. “We’ve doubled down on our religion coverage over the years,” Swenson says. The Tribune went from one-and-a-half reporters on the beat to three full-time religion reporters. “And that has led to an increase in the number of religion stories as well as an overall increase in how well they’re reaching audiences.”
This is the kind of decision that analytics can inform but not dictate. The Tribune didn’t abandon hiking coverage entirely; it simply allocated resources based on evidence about where the paper could build a loyal audience rather than compete against specialized outdoor sites.
Living inside the real-time dashboard
Chartbeat’s real-time dashboard became the Tribune‘s “bread and butter,” as Streicher puts it. The interface is organized around three questions: who is on the site, what they’re reading, and where they came from.
The “who” section shows total viewers minute by minute, time spent on articles, and recirculation—the percentage of readers who move from one story to another. It breaks down subscribers versus guests, new versus returning visitors, devices, and locations.
The “what” section ranks articles by current traffic and displays a graph of traffic over time. Spike alerts notify staff when a story gets significantly more attention than expected—a signal to “go in and beef it up,” Streicher says. “Do things like add related links, include multimedia elements, push it out on social. Just do anything you can to drive more people to the article, or get people to stay on the article longer or dive deeper into your website.”
The “where” section tallies referrals from search engines, social platforms, email, and direct visits. Staff can filter by any dimension to understand, for example, which stories loyal subscribers are reading versus casual visitors.
‘I’m a strong believer philosophically that reporters being aware of how their stories are doing is to everybody’s good, especially the readers’ good.’
Ian Swenson, director of news and audience analytics at the Tribune
Headline testing as a “killer feature”
Swenson calls Chartbeat’s headline testing its “killer feature.” Provide a few options—or let AI generate them—and the platform identifies which headline receives the most engagement. “None of the competitors do that nearly as well,” he says.
Once a winner is identified, Chartbeat applies it automatically. “You don’t need to change it in your CMS,” Streicher explains. “You don’t need to alter it anywhere. You just literally click start, and we do all the work for you.”
Critically, the optimization doesn’t chase clicks for their own sake. Time spent on a page matters more than raw traffic. Readers who visit more than one page are more likely to return. “Publications that are just focusing on clicks alone are not driving a loyal audience,” Streicher says. “And that means that you don’t have sustainability over time.”
Making reporters better at their jobs
The Tribune started using Chartbeat before Swenson arrived, so he says he can’t put hard numbers on the impact. But he’s emphatic about what the tool enables.
Chartbeat allows newsrooms to track which stories lead to paid subscriptions, newsletter sign-ups, or any other metric a newsroom deems essential. It can help maximize advertising revenue by optimizing headlines and other SEO factors. But beyond the financials, Swenson argues, it makes reporters better at their jobs.
“I’m a strong believer philosophically that reporters being aware of how their stories are doing is to everybody’s good, especially the readers’ good,” he says. Reporters can see in real time what’s working. And when a story doesn’t reach the expected audience, “it drives the sort of thinking about, ‘How … do I avoid that from happening next time?’ So, that awareness and usage of tools like Chartbeat just leads to better journalism.”
What the tool doesn’t do
Chartbeat doesn’t make editorial decisions. It doesn’t tell reporters which stories to pursue or which angles to take. It provides data; humans decide what to do with it.
The Tribune’s experience also underscores the importance of knowing what you’re trying to achieve before diving into analytics. “Is it enough to just build readership? Or are you looking to grow newsletter subscriptions? Are you trying to increase clickthroughs from your newsletter to the website?” Swenson asks. “Focus on metrics that align with your goals—don’t let the tool dictate your strategy.”
The platform also has limits. Historical data retention varies by plan. The mobile app is less capable than the desktop version. Some integrations require developer resources. And while Chartbeat is more affordable than competitors like Parse.ly or Marfeel, the Essentials plan still runs around $13,000 annually—a meaningful investment for smaller outlets.
A framework for sustainable journalism
For The Salt Lake Tribune, Chartbeat became more than a dashboard. It became a framework for thinking about coverage, audience, and sustainability in an era when all three are under pressure.
The insight that religion coverage outperforms hiking content didn’t just change a story or two. It informed a strategic decision to expand the religion beat from 1.5 reporters to three. That decision, in turn, produced more journalism that reached more readers who were more likely to subscribe and support the paper’s nonprofit mission.
“It actually affects the journalism, affects the questions you’re asking, what kinds of calls you’re making,” Swenson says. “You figure out who your audiences are and what your approach to the story is going to be at the very outset.”
Newsrooms considering Chartbeat can contact the company at [email protected] for pricing and demos. The platform typically requires 30 to 45 minutes for an initial demonstration.
