Comments on: Do page views make us biased? http://zombiejournalism.com/2009/10/do-page-views-make-us-biased/ Dispatches from the walking dead in today's "old" media Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:55:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mandy http://zombiejournalism.com/2009/10/do-page-views-make-us-biased/comment-page-1/#comment-410 Mandy Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:31:22 +0000 http://manjamedia.com/?p=436#comment-410 From where I sit, they are one and the same. Despite every newspaper's spiel about "allowing the public to have a voice", most really added commenting functionality to add page views, plain and simple. Most newsroom managers don't want to spend time making the comments worthwhile, we'd rather just take the easy page view and be done with it. It makes a huge effect when they aren't there. The Ryan Widmer stories used to do mondo page views, but when we started turning off comments on all of them, they barely register on the scale. Same thing goes for that stabbing story Wednesday. From where I sit, they are one and the same. Despite every newspaper’s spiel about “allowing the public to have a voice”, most really added commenting functionality to add page views, plain and simple. Most newsroom managers don’t want to spend time making the comments worthwhile, we’d rather just take the easy page view and be done with it.

It makes a huge effect when they aren’t there. The Ryan Widmer stories used to do mondo page views, but when we started turning off comments on all of them, they barely register on the scale. Same thing goes for that stabbing story Wednesday.

]]> By: Gregory http://zombiejournalism.com/2009/10/do-page-views-make-us-biased/comment-page-1/#comment-404 Gregory Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:02:33 +0000 http://manjamedia.com/?p=436#comment-404 As evil as they are, I'd rather base my news judgment on page views than on "comment magnets." As evil as they are, I’d rather base my news judgment on page views than on “comment magnets.”

]]>