Ahhh, Internet comments.
Whether you think they are the “grand canyon of bad journalism” or a great way to engage readers in lively debate, the comment boards at the end of online news articles have become engrained in the culture of Internet news.
So how should news organizations handle these comments?
That was the topic of a lively discussion at the 2009 national Society of Professional Journalists convention Saturday.
It’s a topic of interest to the staff at the Valley Independent Sentinel, which requires registration for commenters on stories, and reads each comment before it is posted on the site.
Other papers handle comments differently – such as having a completely hands-off approach and allowing a third-party company handle story comments.
Indianapolis Star editor Dennis Ryerson, one of three panelists at the session “Where to Stand on Standards,” said he’d like to see comment boards on stories treated like a moderated debate among readers.
“Id’s like to see a moderator do a rolling conversation as issues come up,” Ryerson said, describing that job as a sort-of “talk show host.”
But that solution most often can’t happen because of diminishing manpower at newspapers. With the thousands of comments posted at most daily newspaper sites, it could take a full time employee just to handle the single task of sorting through them all.
At the Star, for example, there are about 100,000 comments posted a month, Ryerson said. The paper doesn’t put comment boards up on all stories, leaving especially contentious topics without them.
Legal Issues
Many papers have taken the hands-off approach to comments for several years to avoid legal actions taken against the paper.
Many papers interpreted the Communications Decency Act of 1996 as allowing internet chats and comment boards to be considered public forums.
Once newspapers start editing comments, they take liability for the content, panelists said. Many papers feared the consequences of that liability.
But leaving the comment boards to fester on their own has created a much bigger problem, panelists said.
“The reality is it’s turned into much more diatribe than dialogue,” said panelist Bob Steele, a former ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute who is now a visiting journalism professor at DePauw University.
“I think it’s one of the worst problems in American journalism,” Steele said.
Where should newspapers step in?
Newspapers have also allowed comment boards to run rampant for reasons beyond legal concerns, Steele said.
First, newspaper leaders have been urged by Internet experts that allowing a “marketplace of ideas” to exist online is in the true journalist spirit, he said.
And the comments often bring page views, which news sites are always eager to get.
But newspapers have started to realize the unmonitored comment boards aren’t always the best answer.
Panelist Kevin Finch, former news director for WISH-TV in Indianapolis and now a Web producer and writer for Calamari.com, said newspapers have to view their Internet comment boards as a “brand extension.”
“It reflects on you as a news organization,” Finch said. “The message is the message. The medium is irrelevant.”
Others have toyed with the idea of using Facebook Connect or comment board profiles to keep the boards clean.
The panelists didn’t have conclusive answers on the best practice.
But, as Ryerson said, “I’m not going to give up.”
Editor’s Note: Valley Independent Sentinel Reporter Jodie Mozdzer is at the 2009 national Society of Professional Journalists convention in Indianapolis, representing the Connecticut Pro Chapter during national business meetings.
This article was written for the CT SPJ blog.
Read the Valley Independent Sentinel’s first dispatch from the national SPJ convention here.
