Silicon Alley Insider: Should web stats lead editorial decisions?
July 24th, 2009Posted by Laura Oliver in Editors' pick, Online Journalism, Traffic
An interesting follow-up on an article earlier this week by the New York Observer, which looked at how the New York Times’ home page ‘gets made’.
In the piece, the Times’ digital news editor Jim Roberts said the site’s editors do not rely upon web traffic stats to decide what goes on the homepage.
Silicon Alley Insider disputes this – reporters don’t necessarily need to be aware of the traffic their stories get, it says, but web editors must pay attention to the clicks:
- “It’s the main way readers can show what kinds of stories they care about.
- “The New York Times is a deeply-in-debt, for-profit enterprise that needs to grow its traffic online in order to survive. Web editors should not pretend that it doesn’t matter how many ad impressions the Times serves each day.”
What’s the right balance?
Tags: digital news editor, Jim Roberts, New York Times, silicon alley insider, the New York Observer, the New York Times, The Times, Web editors, web traffic stats
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