Reader comments on the website

[Johnny Dangerously]

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.

 

[Flash]

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.

 

[Peytons place]

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.

 

[SF_Express]

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.

 

[Flash]

From a state university site:

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

The Kennesaw State Sentinel welcomes and encourages readers to comment on our content and engage in substantive, mutually respectful exchanges over topics. Reader comments featured on ksusentinel.com do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Sentinel or Kennesaw State University and we can't vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of comments from readers. Permission to post reader comments is assumed.

Online Posting of Readers Comments
The ksusentinel.com does not review, moderate or edit comments prior to posting, but reserves the right to edit or delete any and all reader comments.

Disclaimer:
• Reading and posting comments at ksusentinel.com constitutes acknowledgment of and agreement to the terms outlined in this comment policy. This comment policy may be revised in part or in full at any time.
• All comments must comport with applicable state and federal laws. The ksusentinel.com has no obigation [sic] to monitor, edit, censor, or take responsibility for comments. It may or may not act upon a violation of its comment policy once a suspected violation has been brought to its attention. Therefore, commenters are solely responsible for the content of their comments and should ensure that that their comments are lawful and fall within the stated guidelines.
• The ksusentinel.com is not be responsible for injury or liability to any reader or commenter resulting from its own communications or those of commenters, that may be offensive, misleading, inaccurate, illegal, or otherwise unsuitable in the view of the reader.
• The ksusentinel.com is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Comments are opinion. Comments may or may not be accurate.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

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.

 

[Flash]

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/

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

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.

 

[bostonbred]

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 ****!

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

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

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.

 

[Flash]

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.

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 ...)

 

[Fredrick]

redrick won't like it -- heck, maybe I don't like it, I just hope I'm a realist -- but that's the way it is and will continue to be, more and more.

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 **** 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 bull****.
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.

 

[stix]

I still have yet to get an adequate explanation of why advertisers would want to be associated with the sort of **** that appears in comment sections. We keep trying to figure out how to migrate our advertisers to the Web, and yet we can't see that having 100 comments about n*****s and Mexicans and how we should shoot them all on sight might not reflect well on us.

LOL.

This rings true with me, because pretty much all the Web comments at the paper I used to work for were racist or vile in nature. Hell, pretty much all the phone calls to the sports department were, too.

The worst is that we had two major high schools, one that was much more predominantly attended by minorities than the other. I don't need to tell you what that often led to from some crazy readers.

 

[tapintoamerica]

The implicit rationale for allowing reader comments is that the consumer's opinion is worthy of respect; that the consumer believes his/her opinion is worthy of respect; that denying reader comments inherely deprives the consumer of his/her rights to expression; and that the consumer would be justifiably angered by a denial of these rights. All of these things assume the consumer has a degree of pride in himself or herself. And if that's the case, the consumer should be happy to provide his or her real name.

 

[Cosmo]

Dredging up an old thread, I know, but I'm now dealing with a situation borne of reader comments. The university I cover will no longer allow the coaches and athletes I deal with to speak to me because of a spat they're having with our paper's Web site's policy on anonymous reader comments. They don't like some of the things being posted about the school, so they're instructing everyone at the school to not talk to the newspaper.

Which was great for me (I'm sure I'm outing myself to the few people who were around yesterday and witnessed the incident, but I don't care), since I drove 3 1/2 hours each way to cover a basketball game and found out only when I reached the site that this edict had come down. I asked questions after the game. I got no commented. We ran an explanation in the game story why the local school will not talk to the fishwrap. Apparently the school is ready to go "to financial war" over this issue.

They play a home game Tuesday, and they very well may pull my credential and not allow me access to press row. No idea how things are going to go when my paper's powers that be meet with the university big wigs tomorrow. I mean, we can't back down from our policy, can we? Otherwise we just tell them that they can run roughshod over us any time they feel like it. And how to I go about erasing the feeling that I got absolutely blindsided yesterday? How do I cover this school objectively again? It's easy to say we can ignore the school in question, but it's the only DI school in town and it does a disservice to our readers if we take the whole thing personally. But I don't think we can back down. The school, FWIW, has stopped e-mailing us their athletics press releases. If they don't want the coverage, they won't get it.

But they've already made it clear that they feel they don't need us, and that they can screw us financially by pulling advertising.

It's a messy situation. Not sure what the answer is.

 

[SF_Express]

Dredging up an old thread, I know, but I'm now dealing with a situation borne of reader comments. The university I cover will no longer allow the coaches and athletes I deal with to speak to me because of a spat they're having with our paper's Web site's policy on anonymous reader comments. They don't like some of the things being posted about the school, so they're instructing everyone at the school to not talk to the newspaper.

Which was great for me (I'm sure I'm outing myself to the few people who were around yesterday and witnessed the incident, but I don't care), since I drove 3 1/2 hours each way to cover a basketball game and found out only when I reached the site that this edict had come down. I asked questions after the game. I got no commented. We ran an explanation in the game story why the local school will not talk to the fishwrap. Apparently the school is ready to go "to financial war" over this issue.

They play a home game Tuesday, and they very well may pull my credential and not allow me access to press row. No idea how things are going to go when my paper's powers that be meet with the university big wigs tomorrow. I mean, we can't back down from our policy, can we? Otherwise we just tell them that they can run roughshod over us any time they feel like it. And how to I go about erasing the feeling that I got absolutely blindsided yesterday? How do I cover this school objectively again? It's easy to say we can ignore the school in question, but it's the only DI school in town and it does a disservice to our readers if we take the whole thing personally. But I don't think we can back down. The school, FWIW, has stopped e-mailing us their athletics press releases. If they don't want the coverage, they won't get it.

But they've already made it clear that they feel they don't need us, and that they can screw us financially by pulling advertising.

It's a messy situation. Not sure what the answer is.

I'm a believer in reader comments on stories, but this whole thing really sucks for you. If it's a state school, I have to wonder whether they legally can deny you equal access (in terms of credentials and such). I'm guessing not, but could be wrong.

The school needs to grow up, but that's the way people can be.

As far as you covering the school objectively again, you just do. That's what pros do, and I'm sure you can, too.

 

[Cosmo]

Yeah, you're right on that last point, SF. I'm glad I've got a few days buffer zone to get my head straight again.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

The story of a school boycotting a newspaper is a story in itself. Ask for comments from school administrators. Go to the school newspaper and get comments from the faculty advisor. If the school has a journalism professor, ask that person for comments. Then go to other media outlets and ask people there for opinions. Go to the AP and Poynter for further comments.

And run it hard like a news story.

 

[dixiehack]

From a state university site:

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

If the KSU Sentinel says the sun is coming up tomorrow, buy candles.

 

[ZummoSports]

But at least people are going to the Web site.

At least that's what the "comment supporters" at my shop say.

Little did they realize...