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Another newspaper circulation scandal

8 comments on Another newspaper circulation scandal

Another newspaper circulation scandal

: The New York Times messes up a circulation report — in a report on Daily Kos (which I disdained here).

The paper quoted NZ Bear’s site saying that 500,000 individuals visited Kos daily. NZ Bear wrote to the paper asking for a correction, saying that the number is actually a count of “visits” and that individuals can account for multiple visits each day. The Times refused to make the correction. Go see the Times editor make a fool of himself in emails Bear publishes.

Bear is absolutely right and The Times is absolutely wrong. And I say that with the authority of an Internet executive who has dealt with these issues for 10 years now and as a founding member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation online committee that officially defined exactly these measurements with the Internet Advertising Bureau.

A “visit” is and always has been a bogus number because it counts only a session, not a unique user (and it gets even more complicated with a site is handled by multiple servers or when a user refuses cookies but I won’t bore you with that). See the IAB definitions here if you dare. Further, as Bear says, these numbers come from Sitemeter, which is not very sophisticated at dealing with spiders and such. So there is no doubt that the number is inflated if The Times is trying to express audience.

All The Times editor had to do is pick up the phone and call NY Times Digital to find this out.

8 responses to “Another newspaper circulation scandal”

  1. AllenS Avatar
    AllenS

    Why would the New York Times let the facts get in the way of a good story?

  2. lets be honest Avatar
    lets be honest

    I disagree. It is an entirely fair comparision metric.
    If you wish the times tio be accurate and explain what we all know, that most blogs claiming 100,000 visits really have 1,000 go ahead. then we all be up in arms about how MSM is dengrating blogs.
    And please don’t go into how we there are audited metrics. do your online clients publish them? they certainly must be aware of the myriad of ways of inflating even the most complex algorythms and third party “audited” metrics.
    I don’t really see a foul on the part of the Times, if anything they must be laughing at bloggers insisting readership is a mere tiny fraction of what it appears. The way blogs are linked and one navigates effectively multiplies hits by a factor of 100.

  3. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    This hardly rises to the status “circulation scandal.” The writer and editor responsible for this article simply don’t know the different between a website visitor and a “unique visitor.” Happens all the time. Yeah, they shoud know; and yeah, it would’ve been easy for them to find out. But this isn’t a scandal by any means.

  4. Cog Avatar
    Cog

    If the NYT is going to exaggerate that much, why not claim that he gets over a million “hits” a day.

  5. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Michael: Circulation scandal is a joke.
    Lets ect.: Sorry, but there are set definitions in the industry for this. The Times said that was how many people came to the site and that’s just wrong by accepted definitions.

  6. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Sorry, missed the joke. You seemed pretty agitated about it…

  7. Jimbo Avatar
    Jimbo

    Hmmm, the NYTimes.com’s advertisers would be a little less sanguine if they found out they used the terms “visits” and “visitors” interchangeably in pitching business.
    How could these editors not understand the difference (which could be one of a factor of 2, 3 or even 4 times)? I hope they don’t write any media articles about reach and frequency, etc.
    Obviously it’s not a world-ending mistake, but the fact that the reporters and editors are earning six figures to know and/or learn about this, and seem to wallow in their own ignorance, is very disheartening.

  8. lets be honest Avatar
    lets be honest

    Mr. Jarvis,
    I have also been working with the web since its inception, including bringing a few small media outlets online. I am aware of all the terminology and metrics. I have worked with sites that use Jupiter and IAB.
    The problem is, and I bet you would agree, that non-corporate blogs are going to only have the most rudimentary metrics. Just basic traffic figures. Even if they do generate the proper logs they don’t have any proper analysis.
    If the NYT is going to use some figure to rate popularity of blogs they don’t have much of a choice but to use that number of visits. Since you know the IAB definions you know that not only is there no way to say how many people visited, but even that “visits” does not mean “visitors” and with cookies pretty much dead.
    I just think you have to go with other analogous measures. The Port Authority of New York New Jersey says x number of cars drive through the Lincloln tunnel each day. I don’t see them nitpicked for the fact that the number is obviously less, most likly half!
    In the end I seriously doubt that is would not be an issue with those complaining if the number quoted had been from a conservative blog.