Must Read: The Wall Street Journal's Coverage of Joaquin Phoenix ... Not

(MoneyWatch)  It turns out that some major newspapers are doing what I've long suspected: using the data concerning page views, length of time spent on popular topics and so forth to dictate some of their coverage, per The New York Times.

If you don't know what's potentially troubling about that, take a quick look at this -- or any day's -- Google Trends and you'll see what I mean. Paying strict observance to the U.S. trends making themselves known online would yield stories in such august newspapers as The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post -- both of which are using online data into determine some coverage -- about Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix and the former Smiths' lead singer Morrissey, who has apparently spent some quality time recently saying not-so-nice things about the Chinese.

Of course, I exaggerate to make the point, but it's a slippery slope between determining that readers want more coverage of how to combat bedbugs and publishing a newspaper so disturbingly populist that it no longer covers the news that is, quite simply, good for us. Reading about President Obama's plan for America's infrastructure may not prove the highlight of anyone's morning, but it's a story that needs prominent placement, nonetheless.

(I should note that the Times itself says it doesn't engage in the practice except to make "strategic decisions" about certain online products, like its blogs. The story quotes executive editor Bill Keller as saying: "We don't let metrics dictate our assignments and play, because we believe readers come to us for our judgment, not the judgment of the crowd. We're not 'American Idol."') That stance may be easier to take when you're the Times, which accounts for about 15 percent of all traffic to newspaper Web sites; USA Today ranks second with about 10 percent.

While the newspapers quoted in the story are quick to trot out examples of when they covered important topics, like Britain's elections, even though not many readers cared, it's still easy, frankly, to see that metrics-dominated decision-making may be slowly encroaching too much on what they do. The story says that the Journal's top editors start the morning meeting looking at metrics; at the Post::

... how many articles ... visitors view and where on the Web those visitors came from -- is on display for the entire newsroom. A red or green marker designates each data point, indicating whether the Web site's goal for the month on that particular metric has been met.

Yikes. It's difficult to imagine that the constant in-flow of Web data doesn't make some imprint on the newsroom psyche.

The newspaper industry, in letting online data somewhat dictate coverage, is only following the lead of online-only products like Aol's Seed, Associated Content and Demand Media -- building content around the almighty algorithm, and paying writers slave wages to create it. But just because they do that doesn't mean the newspaper industry needs to follow. (Image courtesy of Above the Law.)

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