Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile never hesitates to shake things up when he’s talking about the world of online publishing. Accordingly, he just wrote a thought-provoking piece for paidContent, titled “Cargo cults or the Wright Brothers? Metrics can improve newsrooms but only if the culture is ready” – I hope you’ll read it and share your reactions.

Tony talks about why newsroom technology may be fast but newsroom culture rarely keeps pace, the importance of measuring what matters – not just what is measurable, and how content quality changes when newsrooms stop chasing clicks. Here’s an excerpt from his paidContent piece, but read the whole thing here. Share your thoughts in the Comments section or hit up Tony via Twitter.

When you eschew chasing pageviews and make building a loyal audience your goal, it not only aligns commercial and editorial goals, but also dramatically increases the pace of cultural change within newsrooms. It turns out that what loyal audiences care about is what good editorial teams care about too: great articles that capture time and attention. It’s amazing how fast editorial teams embrace and act on data when the underlying message is to write stuff that people love.