We are doing tons of measurement. We use Google Analytics, Omniture, and Parse.ly. We are literally drowning in data.
I have only been in the industry a few years, but most newspaper websites that I come across do the same thing. We product 80-100 new pieces of content per day and it is very challenging to create a design that works.
About our Audience: Our audience is the 5 million residents in the Riverside, CA area. As we are right next to Los Angeles, we do not have dedicated local TV news. There are 13 other newspapers in our market, including the LA Times.
About 30% of our audience accounts for 80% of our uniques & page views. Traffic picks up around 9 and peaks around lunch.
We have seen one trend: Homepage -> article -> homepage -> article etc for the 'top stories'