Good thoughts from Instapundit

Instapundit highlights the battle between Jeff Jarvis and a Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist. Who has more readers?
For almost eight years, I worked at a newspaper with a circulation just over 25,000. But how many people read my weekly sports column? Probably 500 to 1,000, if I was lucky.
Didn't really think about it back in the day (before the internet). But a newspaper is a collection of things various people are interested in, organized in a convenient package. Some like news, some sports and boxscores, some obits, and some (shutter) like the ads.
I attracted sports fans and people I knew in town. After one column, two ladies from my church asked what I meant by "rotisserie baseball." They weren't exactly sure what that column was about, but they read it because I attended their church.
One football season, I was assigned to cover a game between two schools in a neighboring county. We wanted to expand our coverage there. I checked with circulation and found we delivered seven papers across that county. Doubt that game story got much readership.
Our traditional media (newspaper and TV) probably have less reach than they realize or want to disclose. You can track readership on a blog, and see who's coming there from Virginia and who's visiting from Belgium.