I'm not so sure all traffic is created equal, but the marginal benefit of all traffic is certainly positive.
The news aggregation game is a bit in-and-out... traffic we receive (as a publisher) from aggregators comes in and mainly bounces. These readers often browse multiple sources to get a view on an individual story (to get a wider spectrum of views, more detail, better pics, more user insight etc).
The way NewsCred is designed doesn't lend itself so well to this... you have promote one story at a time; I'd consider adding more links to more sources on that story, Techmeme/Google News-style, to take advantage of this sort of behaviour.
Maybe users can ultimately choose their own sources, or NewsCred can choose for them, based on where other people are going. The key is in achieving a good depth of coverage, rather than just pointing people at the big media sites.
For retailers, these are the 'gold' searches. The more detailed the search phrase, the more likely the purchase.
Think about it: 'Digital camera' is far too broad to determine the mindset of the searcher, but 'sony cybershot offer black' shows a far greater purchase intent. Add on a specific product name / number and a sale will be imminent.
For NewsCred this stuff is equally important. You can minimise bounce rates by doing more to keep these users onsite, be it related content, UGC, improved usability / navigation, etc.
Besides, traffic is traffic...