Wish all news organizations would emphasize great work rather than web traffic. From Hub Spot: “We used to show the writers and editors traffic, and told them to grow it; but it had the wrong effect. So we stopped, says Jason Pontin, CEO, editor in chief and publisher of MIT Technology Review. The unintended consequence of showing them traffic, and encouraging them to work to grow total audience, is that they became traffic whores. Whereas I really wanted them to focus on insight, storytelling, and scoops: quality. That phrase – traffic whore – tells you everything you need to know about why some journalists have an aversion to chasing traffic. They fear it creates an incentive to do the wrong things. “As a general rule, we do not judge writers by numbers, says Kara Swisher, the co-executive editor at Re/code, the new name for the former AllThingsD team. In fact, we discourage it and urge them to cover what they think is right. We do not ignore traffic — we pay attention to what works in headlines — but we don’t put press on reporters to hit numbers.”
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 13:54:10 +0000
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