Higinio O. Maycotte is CEO of Umbel, a company that uses data to increase publishers’ understanding of their audiences and online advertising revenue. Knight Foundation supports Umbel through its Enterprise Fund.

Curiosity drives journalism. Questions are the foundation of the industry. And attaining knowledge for your reader, knowledge they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to gain themselves, is what makes media so valuable.

The influx of digital media has made the sharing of this news and information even better: serving up content in real time that readers come to rely on. Yet, digital media sites struggle to maximize the bottom line in the same way their print counterparts do — and it all comes down to advertising and eyeballs.

For print, advertisers pay for longevity and placement, and ad views are often marked up three times for each print buy — accounting for the eyeballs that will see the ad as the purchaser reads it on the subway, as friends pick it up off the coffee table and flip through it, and no doubt for the countless many who scan the pages while waiting in line for groceries.

Digital media is afforded no such luxury. Instead, cost per click (CPC) and cost per impression (CPM) dominate the space, and advertisers pay for each conversion (click) or view of an ad (impression). And no, refreshing the page won’t up your impression number, even if you happen to be showing a Web page to all your friends.

On the Web, hard data takes ad pricing guesswork out of the equation. And ad agencies and networks have been utilizing that data to serve increasingly relevant ads based on a media brand’s audience.

But for the publisher, that data has long been a non sequitur — mostly because media brands haven’t previously been able to access it.

Data is currently in the hands of the business side, and that simply makes no sense. The most important relationship on the Web is that between the content creator and the reader—never the one between the reader and the ad. After all, without the content there is no ad. And without the reader, there is no site to begin with.

The time has come, then, to take back ownership of audience data and place it where it belongs: in the hands of the journalists readers trust. And what makes protecting that data so valuable, so noble, for online writers and editors? Well that’s something only a journalist’s curiosity can rightfully answer.

Previously unattainable knowledge is lurking in the data assets media brands can begin to capture. For journalists, the question is easy: How can you effectively uncover that knowledge and use it to create better content, improve site efficiency and grow your audience in a way that doesn’t compromise trust?

Smart data is the answer. Connecting the dots between what readers like on social media sites and how they act on your site gives journalists the power to predict behavior, notice trends, amplify content and even prove to advertisers that there is a niche digital audience worth much more than a print-based one could ever be.

This type of data, visualized for the curious, the questioning, those who like to dig and discover, gives journalists the ability to make decisions that affect the bottom line – and in turn provide their readers with higher quality articles that don’t just pull in an audience based on a current hot news item, but that do so by being keenly aware of the audience’s interest.

Some think smart data like this will individualize publications and in turn the Internet as a whole, showing users only the information they already like and believe. Some think smart data will turn the Internet into a comfort zone, rather than a learning space.

But those people aren’t using the data properly. Those people haven’t asked the right questions. Those people are lacking that basic curiosity which leads to the journalistic understanding that dictates one elemental rule of the industry: “Tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly, even when it is unpopular to do so.”

Smart data is the modern day tool for digging, understanding and accurately reporting on that diversity, and with a magnitude as big as the World Wide Web. Seek truth and report it: That mission will never change. But the way you go about it will always shift, and to minimize harm, act independently and be accountable to the audience, journalists must take back and protect the data that will save the only industry that speaks for the people.