Mirror journalists have expressed concern that new page-view targets for reporters are encouraging coverage that does not chime with the title’s brand values.
In particular, they cited extensive coverage of Only Fans content creator Bonnie Blue who claimed to have had sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours.
The Mirror published 13 stories about Bonnie Blue on 17 and 18 January including: “Disturbing reason ‘1,057 men’ who queued for sex with star wore balaclavas”, “Bonnie Blue’s real name, private school husband and mum’s surprise role in sex job” and “Bonnie Blue supports same football team as another world famous adult film star”.
The British Association of Journalists, the recognised union of the Mirror, sent a letter to Mirror editor Caroline Waterston on behalf of 47 journalists at the title on 20 January.
The letter called for the individual page-view targets to be paused pending a new consultation and detailed concerns including the following:
“1. Page-view targets do not reflect the nature and value of work carried out, particularly impacting on the road reporters e.g. cultivating contacts, long-term projects and working away from the office to source exclusives.
“2. Individual targets will encourage clickbait as already seen on Reach’s regional titles. Clickbait undermines quality journalism – see Bonnie Blue stories.
“3. Monthly page-view targets appear arbitrary, set at either 250,000, 500,000 or 1 million. What support is being offered to meet these targets. And if we do meet them, will the target go up?
“4. What happens if we don’t meet a monthly target? Do we have a guarantee that our job isn’t at risk?
“5. Targets are being imposed despite acknowledged glitches in the Chartbeat metric and problems with reporters not getting bylines. Targets do not reflect the nature and value of work carried out, particularly for ‘on the road’ reporters.
“6. The target implies that every ‘click’ is of equal value to the Mirror brand.
“7. Reporters are working on ways to increase their numbers but targets place accountability disproportionately on individual reporters. Responsibility for how a story does often lies further up the chain – whether it’s shared on social/placed on homepage/sent to referrers like Drudge and Apple news.
“8. Targets also do not take into account user experience of the website, which for years has been a source of reader complaints.
“9. The Mirror has always worked best when we work collaboratively. Individual targets undermine this.”
Press Gazette understands that since the letter has been sent there have been a number of meetings between the Mirror editor and groups of staff to discuss concerns.
But one Mirror journalist told Press Gazette “morale is on the floor”. They added: “Nobody is hitting these targets.”
According to the latest Press Gazette ranking of the UK’s 50 biggest news websites, UK audience minutes spent with the Mirror fell 10.5% year on year to 203 million in December. Rival tabloid The Sun is one place above the Mirror in our engagement table but fell by a greater 20% year on year to 287 million audience minutes in the month.
An earlier letter sent to Waterson signed by around 40 Mirror journalists said: “…morale, already low, has sunk further and faster than any of us can remember and these targets now raise serious concerns for staff wellbeing and mental health.
“We fully understand why page views are important. All of us want to write stories that do well online and are already embracing digital changes to our roles, such as building stories in [content management system] Cue. But a monthly target cannot become the sole or even primary measure of a Mirror journalist’s worth.
“Page view targets are a reductive measure of our value and disincentive quality journalism, long-term projects, cultivating contacts and leaving our desks to source the exclusive stories that give our readers a reason to visit our website and buy our papers.”
Waterson said: “We have a great opportunity to make the Mirror more successful and impactful than ever before and I will keep having open and honest conversations with the team to make this happen.
“I’ve had some really productive and encouraging discussions over the past few weeks, so the situation has moved on and positively since these letters.”
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
