Those pesky comments
November 8, 2007 by lancespeere
The New York Times began adding a reader comments option to its news stories this week. Many newspapers have been doing this for some time. There are a few holdouts. Previously, the Times was only allowing comments to its blogs, and those were moderated. The reader comments to the news stories will also be moderated — in fact, Editor and Publisher reports that the Times has hired four part-time employees to “moderate” the comments.
The comments sections are popular among college newspaper websites, causing much debate about the value and headache caused by the interactive feature. A couple of sessions at the D.C. conference dealt with the issues surrounding reader comments, and a recent CMA listserv thread enjoyed a robust discussion about reader comments.
What I found most interesting about the news that The New York Times has dipped its toe into the murky waters of comments is that even the brass there don’t have the answers. This comment from NY Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt in E&P is quite revealing:
“As The New York Times transforms itself into a multimedia news and information platform — the printed newspaper plus a robust nytimes.com offering breaking news, blogs, interactive graphics, video and more — it is struggling with a vexing problem,.” he observes. “How does the august Times, which has long stood for dignified authority, come to terms with the fractious, democratic culture of the Internet, where readers expect to participate but sometimes do so in coarse, bullying and misinformed ways?
“The answer so far is cautiously, carefully and with uneven success.”
The Houston Chronicle has allowed reader comments on stories for some time now. Usually, the majority of the comments are, IMHO, worthless. A comment that says “Fry him!” seems to be more common than one that discusses the aspects of a death penalty case, for example.
Another problem seems to be that the Chronicle updates its online stories but the old comments stay. So early comments might later make no sense because information was removed or added to the story. That in turn leads to later commentors heckling earlier commentors about being stupid, because “it says that right there in the story.”
On the other hand, in local education stories I’ve noticed that both the teacher’s union leader and the press contact for the school district will often post to clarify positions, answer to commentors, etc., and that could be a good thing.
I admit to reading the comments to stories on a regular basis, but it is more for the “entertainment” value than because they offer any real insight or reason for discussion.
We started allowing “anonymous” (as opposed to moderated with registration required) posts this fall. Already it’s been a headache. We’ve had people posing as other people. We’ve had people flaming other people. It seems to me that the point of journalism is to be the moderator — the gatekeeper. There are plenty of sites and forums for people to spout off. Journalism is about fair and balanced coverage. Now, do we take the time to moderate the site? What about fake registrations if we require registration? Do we validate like we do with letters to the editor? Is the “entertainment” value worth it or are journalistic sites somehow just different?