A large and growing body of literature shows that audience metrics exert a significant influence in many newsrooms around the world. Scholars assume that this might affect the quality of news, but findings on how audience metrics influence news quality and media performance are scattered. Based on a widely used set of news quality criteria, this article is the first to focus on this question. It reviews and discusses the existing findings by considering the influence of audience metrics across four analytical dimensions: A) the allocation of resources and recognition; B) the volume, practices and rhythms of news production; C) the selection and placement of topics; and D) the formats and styles of news presentation. The analysis reveals that journalists’ use of audience metrics has a mainly negative impact on news quality. This effect is the result of both the growing economic pressures on newsrooms and a dominant rhetoric that equates measures of audience size with audience interests and good journalistic work.

中文翻译：

---

为了良好的新闻和观众利益？受众群体指标如何影响新闻质量

大量且不断增长的文献表明，受众指标在全球许多新闻编辑室中都发挥着重要作用。学者们认为这可能会影响新闻质量，但是关于受众指标如何影响新闻质量和媒体表现的发现却很分散。基于广泛使用的一组新闻质量标准，本文是第一篇关注此问题的文章。它通过考虑受众指标在四个分析维度上的影响来审查和讨论现有发现：A）资源分配和认可；B）新闻制作的数量，做法和节奏；C）主题的选择和位置；D）新闻简报的格式和样式。分析表明，记者使用受众指标对新闻质量产生主要负面影响。