A recent study by the Bivings Group offered some keen insight to newpaper websites and what people expect from them.
One of the more interesting findings from the study:
Just as Web users have come to expect interactivity from blogs, they have also come to expect interactivity from news articles in general. Thus, it was surprising to find that only 19 of the nation’s top 100 most circulated newspapers allowed users to make comments directly on articles they read online. This function would be a useful tool for creating productive discussion around topical issues, as it would allow articles to inspire people to share their thoughts about an issue. Despite the value of this feature, the large majority of the nation’s newspapers have failed to make this service available to their readers.
The Washington Post struggled with this Web feature earlier this year. In January, 2006, the Washington Post had to turn off comments on its blog, Post.blog, after an article written by Deborah Howell spurred a massive commenting war on the Post’s website. According to Jim Brady, executive editor for the Washington Post, “The move [to turn off comments] came after several comments containing personal attacks, profanity and hate speech were posted on an item about Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell's recent column about the Abramoff scandal: Getting the Story on Jack Abramoff.” Brady continued in an entry he posted on the newspaper’s blog, “Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it's a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about. We're not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it."21
This anecdote from the Washington Post provides a partial explanation for why newspapers may be reluctant to allow open commenting on articles. In this particular case, a controversial column caused profanity and personal attacks to be printed on the newspaper’s website. While the paper took responsibility for editing these comments, they became so overwhelming that the only solution was to turn commenting off all together. For many papers, it is understandable that they do not want to run the risk of having obscene of offensive material appear on their website, or have the inconvenience of monitoring thousands of reader comments for such unacceptable language and unproductive and offensive discussion. Losing control of paper content and the material appearing on a newspaper’s website is a factor discouraging papers from allowing full interactivity, and the experience of the Washington Post in January of 2006 provides an example of what can happen when irresponsible reader comments and opinions go unchecked.
This past week, we established commenting on articles on nwlanews.com. It is something we have been discussing for quite some time. We have been reluctant to do so for the very reasons cited in the study. Something as simple as a message board wreaked much havoc in Webster Parish several years ago.
Our solution was to make the commenting available to registered users only. We think totally anonymous comments are just "asking for trouble." However, we do want feedback, both on on the issues of the day and on the articles in general. Users real names will not appear on the comments, but their registered username will. Only the webmaster of nwlanews.com will know the identity of the user. Our registration process is simple, free and non-probing.
I hope folks will begin the dialogue about local news. I think that is healthy.
May The Blog Be With You
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