NPR is Building an Analytics Bot that Emphasizes Caring Over Clicks

For years, journalists have railed against pageviews and uniques, twin metrics that have established supremacy over much of the Internet. Their argument, all tidied up, goes like this: Pageviews and uniques tend to emphasize frivolous content (think cat videos) at the expense of time-intensive journalism. The metrics can be gamed by publishers with the money and inclination to buy traffic. And a lack of standardization throughout the industry has led to confusion among advertisers and outlets about the value of a click.