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by olyjohn 1897 days ago
The fucking article even mentions how many trackers are on Gizmodo, and then says "BUT THATS NORMAL ITS ON EVERY SITE YOU GO TO!" The author writes a piece and shits all over Facebook, and then goes on to minimize it when it comes to them doing it.
1 comments

The author has absolutely 0 control over that.

Directions on analytics come from the "serious, business-minded" end of the company. That is true for every [major] journalism outlet. It's always been true.

Don't put that on the writers to resolve. Unless they have the resources to found their own competitor, they're as much at the mercy of the whims of the company heads as the readers are.

Even the development staff have little to no say about it. Inclusions of those kinds of things are at the behest of sales/marketing and management/executive. There is less crossover between those groups and the editorial staff than many people have decided to believe, no matter how often they're reminded.

If you ask me, the writer is doing plenty and they're doing exactly what is in their power to do: write about it.

Frankly, it seems like a modern miracle that a publication will produce editorial pieces that are so self-critical. I think it speaks to a healthy journalistic environment in general, even if the business practices need an overhaul.