We've heard of blogs paying writers based on pageviews before, but never print publications doling out bonuses based on clicks. However, rumors on the web Thursday report that USA Today will be doing just that.

Big Lead Sports referenced a conference call in which the pageviews-equals-pay idea was outlined. Those are basically all the details available. Gannett Blog (an insider blog about the media company) founder and former USA Today reporter Jim Hopkins told Jim Romenesko at Poynter: "This tracks with something I was told earlier, about reporters getting trained on using Omniture so they can track traffic on their stories."

As we said, this info is rather thin. We're reached out to USA Today and Gannett for comment.

Update: Jim Romenesko received the following comment from Ed Cassidy, USA Today's vice president of communications and event marketing: "Jim, USA TODAY has and continues to consider bonuses based on page views but nothing has been decided at this time."

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, shulz