“You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to be the most-read story online…”

Something I notice a lot when people complain about the media is that the media are not doing enough hard-nosed investigative reporting.

“If you did less fluff, less arrest stories and more muckraking, maybe people would read you more,” these folks say.

I’m not sold. Especially since now, thanks to the Internet, you can see quickly what people are actually spending their time reading.

William Lobdell, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, shared his analysis of what, according to the “most popular” widgets that the Times and our sister Orange County Register have on their Web sites, people are actually reading:

Both The Times and Register devote tremendous resources to provide readers with in-depth reporting from around the world. But do today’s readers care? I would argue that they would rather read commentary (the reason why the Huffington Post has been so successful) and celebrity and crime news.

To sum up the argument even shorter:

The top-viewed stories don’t reflect the work of 600-plus journalists busting their asses around the world. That’s just not valued by Internet readers.

At the time of this blog posting, these are the five top-viewed stories at the A-D:

• Jet ski tragedy worsens
• Gigantic marijuana plants seized
• Police blotter: Sept. 30, 2008
• Yuba-Sutter reacts to financial chaos
• Wall Street plug pulled

The top three are all crime-related. Nowhere to be found are the latest on the Yuba City City Council and the Hillcrest water system, work to make sure senior citizens don’t starve to death or concerns over whether students in Marysville Joint Unified actually have textbooks.

So, let’s be blunt: When you come to appeal-democrat.com, what are you actually reading, and does it match up with what you think the newspaper should devote its resources to?

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