Why Gawker Inc. items might seem a little hyped

Media gossip blogger Maggie Shnayerson was let go at Gawker after less than six months. It's all about the ratings, per this item at Radar:

An e-mail from Gawker Media overlord Nick Denton put it this way: "I'm afraid your stories are not performing well enough on Gawker, and I don't see how you're going to turn that around. Last month, you got about 400,000 pageviews; this month you're at 160,000; even taking into account your break, that's still far from satisfactory. You should be doing some 670,000 views a month to justify your advance. You're a good writer, and your stories are fine; you just seem to wrestle with them for longer than we can afford. I don't think you're suited to the pace of Gawker."

Phew, good thing mainstream media haven't started rewarding writers based on eye balls attracted rather than insight, substance or radiant writing. Oh, wait...