What do Cecil the lion, the Pope and Adele have in common? No, the answer isn’t a bizarre chance encounter, but they are the Top 3 most viewed national newspaper articles online in the past 12 months.
The data is compiled from NLA’s powerful new tool AIM (Article Impact Measurement). AIM brings together precise internet page view data directly from the newspaper publisher’s site analytics platforms.
In first place was the Telegraph, with plaudits going to journalists Harriet Alexander, Peta Thornycroft and Aislinn Laing. Their exposé on Cecil the lion’s plight moved the world to condemnation and generated almost seven million hits on The Telegraph’s website. In second and third place were Adam Withnall of The Independent and Bryony Gordon of The Telegraph for their stories on Pope Francis’ support of the theory of evolution and Adele’s snub of Bob Geldof’s project Band Aid respectively.
In total these three stories generated over 16 million views between them, highlighting the astonishing reach of high quality journalism online. While the stories may be different in character, colour and content, they all demonstrate the public’s appetite for reading about diverse issues from trusted sources of information.
So while the commonality between a lion, a religious leader and a pop star may remain unclear to most, AIM allows media and communication professionals to read between the lines.
