Patrick Beeson

Dow Jones Market Watch's Jon Friedman is the latest to attach himself to the contingent against the most-read stories lists available on most newspaper Web sites.

And like his brethren, Friedman harps about the damage these lists pose to the standards of journalism, claiming editors will "gravitate toward publishing puffy human-interest or gossipy stories instead of hard news."

The worst aspect to these lists is the fear that journalists, trying to win favor with their business-conscious editors, will lower their standards and write top-40 stories instead of pieces with actual depth.

But guess what -- the curmudgeon is right.

The most-e-mailed and most-commented lists on knoxnews.com, the Web site of The Knoxville News-Sentinel, are chock-full of the type of stories that are fun reads, but offer little substance. A big exception to this rule was during the news coverage of the paper's lawsuit against the city over violations of the sunshine law.

I'll be damned if I don't follow suit with the majority of die-hard newspaper Web site readers in following these lists. In fact, they're the first thing I scroll to on knoxnews.com and other daily haunts outside my RSS reader.

Friedman's solution is in his column's headline:

Please! Abolish the Web's evil page-view count

My solution is a bit more radical: What if the most-read lists were sorted by the time-spent variable instead of the page view?

Most fluff stories can be summarized in the headline and perhaps a fetching photo or video. But more in-depth, substantive pieces will require more time, therefore offering a better sense of true engagement then their Britney-esque counterparts.

This also has the benefit of being a high-value attraction for advertisers. Ad sales folks could harp about the amount of time users spent on the most-read stories, and sell ads targeted specifically to those 10 items.

It's essentially the same argument made for online video, which stands little to no chance at being sold on a CPM level unless it's a YouTube darling.

But regardless of how the most-read stories are sorted, newspaper editors should realize one thing: The Web audience is not the same as the print audience, and perceptions should be adjusted accordingly.