Is journalism about hits?

In a Globe and Mail column
titled “When journalism is about hits, the craft goes amiss,” Roy
MacGregor discusses the dangers
of confusing web page hits with circulation.

He writes:

“It is time to rethink Journalism 101.

“It’s no longer so much about the five W’s – who, what, where, when and
why – but increasingly this nervous, uncertain business is about the
five thousand, five hundred thousand, five million H’s.

“As in ‘hits.'”

Claude Adams discussed a similar phenomenon in a recent J-Source column:

“In case you don’t
know it yet, the future of journalism is eyeballs. Eyeballs are
everything. Tomorrow’s successful journalist is an eyeball accumulator.”