Happy Trails to John Robinson, one of journalism’s best editors

With all due respect to John Robinson, he is dead wrong that it’s time for his newsroom “to have new leadership with new ideas.”

Maybe it’s time for John to enjoy something else in life. But he brought outstanding leadership and an endless flow of new ideas to the Greensboro News & Record in 13 years as editor. Whoever the new leader is will have a tough act to follow.

John announced his resignation Tuesday, with his last day scheduled for Dec. 2.

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Observations on another monthly traffic record

I set another traffic record for the blog in October, with 18,245 page views. I slipped past September’s total of 17,635 page views on the last afternoon of the month.

I don’t have as many observations on the record this time as I had about September’s record. But here are a few:

• It’s easier to set a record in October than in September, thanks to the extra day. I doubt if I’ll get another record in November, given the holiday and that it’s another 30-day month.
• Weekends don’t necessarily impact traffic. October had five weekends and September had four, so September actually had more non-weekend days, 22 to 21. My four slowest days in October, the only days with fewer than 300 views, were all on weekends. But I also had 916 views on Sunday, Oct. 16, the day I published the most-viewed post of the month. I also had good traffic the next weekend, 1,200-plus over the two days. I published my third most-viewed post of the month that Saturday. When I publish something good on the weekend, people find it.

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