This chief editor is basically telling his people to write what readers want to read. But there’s a difference between what readers always want to read and what may be necessary to read.
For example, if people only read what they wanted to read, how many people would really take interest in a possibly boring but important scandal? The Catholic Church sex abuse scandal comes to mind. It’s impact was global, but it’s not really related to domestic political battles or terrorism or whatever else really sells in the media these days.
The problem is worse now because news isn’t sold as a broadsheet anymore, where subscribers might not read everything in an issue, but eyes are on all of the stories. Is that the case when everyone gets to pick a la carte from a website, especially when management like this is telling reporters to focus on what gets the most clicks?