In an August 19, 2007 article on the Washington Post website, staff writer Joel Achenbach laments newspaper journalism's new obsessions with "eyeballs, page views, 'stickiness,' and 'click-through rates.'" He argues that marketing is increasingly becoming part of the journalistic mix. "Reporters long immune from circulation concerns are now encouraged to identify bloggers who might link to their work," Achenbach explains.

Achenbach writes:

The noble product that we manufacture and distribute throughout the metropolis -- the physical thing so carefully designed, folded and bagged -- is now generally referred to in our business as the "dead-tree edition." It gets little respect...

...Our future is on the Web. This is the mantra in newsrooms. And the Web lets us discover how many readers each article attracts. The data can be scrutinized in real time, moment to moment. Inevitably, this is going to change the way we do business -- excuse me, I mean the way we do journalism...

...The classic slander against people in my profession used to be "You're just trying to sell newspapers." It wasn't true. We were much too pretentious to worry about the crass concerns of the bean counters. The business model for a newspaper seemed secure. Newspapers were cash machines, with profit margins routinely hovering around 25 percent...

...Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz says that the ability to track page views moment to moment "is a formula for pandering and mud wrestling." He asks: "What if it turns out that most readers are sick of Iraq, or don't want any foreign news at all? Do you just toss it out? That's not journalism, it's marketing..."

...Marketing, however, may increasingly become part of the journalistic mix (along with reporting, writing, doing an online chat, podcasting, filming a video diary, answering e-mails, blogging, etc.) Reporters long immune from circulation concerns are now encouraged to identify bloggers who might link to their work...

...Here's a metric I think we ought to keep in the mix: Gut instinct. A reporter's own sense of a good story. That means being willing to ignore the latest page views and use your professional judgment to produce great journalism.

One more thing: Good writing remains good writing regardless of platform. The Web tends to be a chattier place, more off-the-cuff, but it is still a place where readers appreciate a well-crafted sentence, a nuanced thought, a fully elucidated thesis and commentary undergirded by fact, honesty and a generosity of spirit...

...My strong hunch is that most readers -- even those crazy Internet people! -- will gravitate to news sources that provide solid reporting and analysis. Get it right and be fair -- these principles are good ones regardless of the platform...

...[And] here's a proposition: News outlets will never get anywhere if they're obsessed with chasing readers. They can, however, collaborate with them. And therein lies a hopeful future for the business.

Citizen journalism, commentary, rants, recipes, travelogues. Readers can produce all this stuff for a newspaper Web site. The professional journalist can be an instigator of a micro-community of readers, but the readers themselves really run the show. And by the way, they do it all for free...

Click here to read Achenbach's article in its entirety on the Washington Post website.