Over at Gawker Nick Denton is taking issue with something the NYT's Aron Pilhofer said at this morning's Circus keynote session. Namely that Pilhofer thinks "we're a long way from reporters paying attention to page views." Read: the Times ain't no Gawker!

Wotever?!, says Denton.

Well, it is true that they don't know the pageviews on each article they byline. But they have one measure: the Times' list of the most emailed items of each day. And some Times reporters set so much store by an appearance on the list that they'll fix the numbers by emailing around an article themselves.

We can't actually confirm this assertion, having never been on receiving end of either a MoDo or Tom Friedman email, but we strongly suspect that Denton is close to the mark when he says that reporters are "as hungry for attention in their own way as the most spotlight-hogging movie star." He would know...he's certainly had a hand at creating a number of them.