Watch Out For Heavy Traffic
"My view is that for the Boston Globe to think this is news of the slightest interest to the public, let alone put it on the front page, is just one more sign of the slow, relentless death of a once great newspaper. If I wanted to read the National Enquirer, I would buy it. What I want is a newspaper, a daily journal that covers the meaningful local, national and international events of the day, provides analysis and context, investigates what the powerful wants to hide from us, and helps us be informed and effective citizens. Instead we get this voyeuristic trash. For shame."
Only one problem: As Reilly points out, "the Brady story is currently the most emailed item on Boston.com. Also, 'Tom Brady' is the most popular search."
He adds: "So maybe Boston's just getting the journalism it deserves here."
Media outlets are increasingly turning to their traffic stats to measure what stories their audience is interested in, which may be part of the reason the she's-having-her-ex-boyfriend-Tom-Brady's-baby story got such good play in the paper. Howard Owens looks at the dustup and wonders: "Are we in danger of letting reader stats dictate coverage?" Notes Owens: "There has always been an underlying conflict in journalism — readers complain about sensationalism, but accidents, crimes, natural disasters and gossip help sell papers and spike TV ratings. On the web, we just get to witness the conflict in real time. Journalists want to be high minded, but they also want an audience."
Will Sullivan is also weighing in, though he focuses on a slightly different topic: Bald Britney.
"Does Britney Spears' shaved head really warrant being on the home page for three days straight?" he asks. "You don't need to preach to me about using click-throughs as a tool for users to tell us what they want (which for so long most newsrooms have ignored, instead just force-feeding their definition of what's 'news') … But it's really a slippery slope. Just because there are stale editors that don't want to acknowledge that people's interest are different than everything traditional journalism preaches, doesn't mean [journalism] should swing the total other direction and just become E! Entertainment Television."