More than 500 full-time journalists are creating content for AOL. But they don’t decide what to write in the traditional way. Veteran reporters and editors are getting an eye-opening experience in the future of news, AOL-style. Pages of Web traffic data are posted on the newsroom walls to let reporters and editors know how well their stories are performing, and even which stories to write. Ads placed next to their stories remind them who’s paying the bills. Business Week reports the company is thinking about sharing quarterly profits with staffers who get the most page views.
Business Week also looks at AOL’s big plans for hyper-local journalism. CEO Tim Armstrong believes he can succeed despite the challenges facing other large news organizations.
