Reader comments on the website

Not arguing that with you. Just said there are good ways and bad ways to do it. I don't think you disagree with that.

 

Not at all. The Calgary Herald just opened its stories up to comments and so far, I haven't seen any problems. No way I could promise it won't get out of hand but I'll certainly be interested to see what happens when it does.

 

Of course they want to interact and respond. But where do we draw the line? We're talking about reader comments on news stories on a site that respresents your newspaper. That's different than a message board, like this one, where we can all have our say anonymously, and it doesn't really impact credibility. Go to any newspaper site that allows reader comments on stories and check a crime story, and see if those comments make you feel great about the "dialogue" the newspaper has created with its readers. I'm willing to sacrifice "dialogue" for honor, credibility and not offending other potential readers.

 

Nobody's going to like this much -- again, perhaps me included -- but the number of readers you drive away with messages they don't like to read is insignificant compared to (and perhaps more than offset by) the readers you're going to have down the road BECAUSE of interactivity.

This is my opinion based on what I see and read, not a statistical fact.

By the way, I'm not advocating unmonitored comments on everything. But nobody's going to be able to afford 24/7 policing of message boards and story comments, either. Again, I just think you live with it these days.

 

From a state university site:

http://www.ksusentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1690

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I had some nightmarish experiences with reader comments on my blog in the spring. Some days I spent 3-4 hours dealing just with that. There has to be a better way than how we handled it. Oh, and when a reader posted an umpire's home address and phone number, the NCAA threatened to deny us credentials to the College World Series if we didn't remove the comment. We didn't even know about it until the NCAA notified us. It was super regional weekend, and working 14-hour days I had to choose between doing my job and monitoring comments, which can turn into a full-time job if you let it. I was busy doing my beat and missed the comment until the NCAA contacted me.

I don't work there now, so I'm not going to belabor the point or give more details, but I never want to go through some of those experiences again. This is a huge Pandora's Box if you don't have a plan you can administer. When I didn't answer every fan's question or concern, I heard from them. They don't like being ignored. But where do you draw the line? If you maintain the dialog as much as they'd like, you'd never be able to do your primary job.

 

That's just it, JD. In the rush to become first in line, a lot of papers have done this too willy-nilly without thoughtful consideration of a policy, the repercussions, and staffing ... and as I posted earlier, we know how many newspapers these days would be willing to add a staffer.

If anyone is interested, here's a link a study on internet use by the States' major newspapers. Haven't had a chance to read it myself, but it is bookmarked:

http://www.bivingsreport.com/2008/the-use-of-the-internet-by-americas-largest-newspapers-2008-edition/

 

Thanks.

It got to where every LSU fan in every city in the country wanted to know his or her viewing options based on the street, cable company, etc. If I do that sort of blog again, I'm going to make it clear I can't answer every query.

 

Last year I was covering a tiny high school football team in the middle of nowhere, and they beat a rival school by 40 or 50 points. I happened to slip the word "lowly" before the losing school's name and got about seven scathing comments on my story by fans of that school. Hell, I didn't know seven people read the shit!

You just gotta shake the comments off because some of these people will pick apart every sentence.

 

Shaking off comments is one thing if you're only trying to give readers a voice, but a theme of this thread (and one of the linked columns) is a dialog. That means back and forth. That's where I ran into problems, including many time contsraints.

 

No, you're right. You can't answer every query. But I think it is important to answer the key ones and interact in an intelligent, thoughtful manner -- hopefully, if blogging reporters were to give their commenters respect, they might earn some back.

(I know, I know, rose-coloured glasses and all ...)

 

I just don't think this is right. At our shop, a popular local sports story may get 30 comments. At least half are rude, sometimes crude criticisms of the newspaper or the author.
There is no way to have a dialogue with the people that post this crap. I mean what do you have a dialogue about? Responding to somebody saying the newspaper sucks? The reporter sucks?
As a reporter, we're not allowed to tell an anonymous reader to go fuck themselves.

My TOTAL POINT is yes there could be a civil discussion between author and Internet article reader. Only if the reader is forced to put his/her real name as they are forced to do on letters to the editor in the print edition.
Otherwise this is all bullshit.
People that say reporters must interact probably don't even read these comments and see how libelous and insulting they are. The libelous, rude comments would all go away if readers/flamers had to post under their real names.

Editors don't want that, because they realize 85 percent of the readers won't post under those conditions.
That story about the umpire address was awesome. There's nobody in charge at that paper reading and editing and removing comments like that. At our paper, we had racist comments including the n word and nobody removed them. It's ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. You can all call me an ass, but tell me the value of ANONYMOUS COMMENTS.
There's no value to anonymous comments if the goal is a civil interaction.