Myles Tanzer tackles the familiar and recurring question: How to measure media beyond the page view. With the recent attention being paid to time spent, there’s a concern that a new metric isn’t ready to take the place of the reviled page views system. Noah Chestnut, the director of The New Republic labs, said that one of the biggest pitfalls of time spent is that all content isn’t meant to be read for a long time.

+ Rounding out this week’s debates: Ryan Chittum replies to Clay Shirky: “The key to any future for newspapers is managing that decline while building up their digital business.” (Columbia Journalism Review); Rick Edmonds on Clay Christensen and disruption: “Figuring how to put Christensen’s theory to practice will remain essential, though I will grant Lepore that his big idea is better treated critically than as gospel.” (Poynter)