2. Measuring journalistic influence

In sharp contrast to the deluge of data about the size and shape of online audiences, there is an almost complete lack of thoughtful measures of how news stories travel and what effect they have. Journalists themselves care deeply about how their work fares in the so‐called “link economy” — who is citing, linking to, and talking about the stories they produce. This requires closer attention to the journalistic ecosystem itself, to the relationships between and among different kinds of news outlets and journalists. The Tow Center can play an important role in developing tools and approaches to measure journalistic influence in a rapidly changing news environment. Rosen suggests a key mission for research is to show how journalists’ work matters, and to help editorial culture maintain authority in the face of audience metrics aimed at replicating mass‐media business logic. “When you donʹt have great data, you use whatever youʹve got,” he says. “The need is for metrics that arise out of the mission and values of editorial workers, and can support alternative logics for better decisions.”