Do comments for stories enhance or worsen the online reading experience?

From Now magazine. Joshua Errett writes:

Not so long ago, comment sections were considered the saviour of news jour­nalism, luring online readers back to traditional news sources from blogs and message boards. Reader feedback allowed current-events conversational­ists to riff on the news without being anywhere near a water cooler, thus giv­ing online newspapers new rele­vance. ...

In the last year, a strong anti-comment movement has emerged in online journalism. Offensive responses, the thinking goes, are turning readers away from news sites instead of reeling them in.
 
Recently, a blogger for the Stranger, an alternative weekly in Seattle, quit her job at the paper because of “cruel” commenters. For similar reasons, pop­ular blogger and Web entrepreneur Jason Calacanis abandoned his blog in favour of a private e-?mail list. Tumblr, a newish blog service, is now mostly comment-?free. 
 
Locally, the Toronto Star’s website moderator was forced to close feedback on a news story concerning the Jamaican Canadian Association last week after users became abusive toward a subject in a story. At the group blog Torontoist, one resourceful reader built a modification that ­allows you to block out certain commenters you don’t want to read.
All that is fine, so far as it goes, but to me, mean comments aren't necessarily the weakest link in the news-as-conversation chain.
 
To create better dialogue, journalists need to engage more with their audiences in a two-way fashion. Reporters should answer legitimate requests for further information made in story comments, and editors/producers should seriously engage with serious critics and the general public.
 
The online news medium needs to embrace transparency and tell objectivity, "thanks for helping out."
 
Oh, and read this, if you haven't already.
 
That's the short, punchy version. The long, tedious version follows. :)
 
The long, tedious version
 
I've worked in online news for ... a while. :)
 
One thing that differentiates the online medium from, say, newspapers is the opportunity for instantaneous interactivity.
 
The instantaneous nature of that interactivity is both a blessing and a curse. The more instantaneous the reaction, the more likely it is to be thoughtless, if not outright mean. This is worsened if content in the post triggers a response that originates from the limbic system of the brain. And even worse, people can comment anonymously, which removes any of the social controls (save innate decency) that temper our normal interactions. They can also hunt in packs.
 
For those reasons, in the blogosphere, demagoguery sells (in that sense, it's much like talk radio, its broadcast analogue). If you want lots of comments, be outrageous and viciously attack someone or something -- or even not so viciously. The most commented-upon post I've had in months was a little throw-away about a person who is not-so-popular in some circles.
 
But I've had other posts, with cumulative page views in the thousands, that didn't tweak anyone's nose and as a result, didn't trigger one comment.
 
One post I think provided a thoughtful treatment of the Maclean's/CIC imbroglio was this June 27 effort: The stupid column by Haroon Siddiqui on the Maclean's case. That post didn't even come close to cracking the top 10 for the month, let alone attracting a comment, although the most-read (Global Metal - A moment), didn't get commented upon either.
 
But then again, what would be the value in having a lot of stupid comments?
 
With many blogs, the comments come from a small coterie of the converted. The fans of  the hard-edged blogs tend to reinforce each other.
 
I've seen little in the way of useful debate in these forums. And in some cases, what's coming out of the commenters is just vile. Blecch.
 
Now, onto newspapers and MSM websites.
 
We had forums for a while at globeandmail.com (I worked there from July 2000 to February 2003), and the same problems that plague online comments today existed then. (I also moderated an email discussion list for journalists for more than four years, and it wasn't always a wacko-free zone. :) And does anyone remember Usenet groups or BBS boards?*) We also did live online chats.
* For a detailed look at toxic online behaviour, check out the Aug. 3 NYT Magazine story Malwebolence: The  World of Web Trolling.
Back then, the discussion forums were separate from the stories.
 
In the meantime, a little thing emerged called the read-write Web, among other trends and technologies. At a landmark conference here in Toronto in August 2004, Dan Gillmor, then a technology reporter with the San Jose Mercury-News, tied all this stuff together for the audience (here's a Wired interview with him from that time; he also wrote a book called We The Media: Grassroots journalism by the People, for the People). The conference was so inspirational I started this blog just days later.
 
There were relatively few newspaper people at that conference, even though it was co-sponsored by the Canadian Newspaper Association. But why bother going when the Internet was so clearly just a passing fad? After all, it was 2004. Just one more day, and the Internet would go away, and things would be just like they used to be. :^)
 
Here's some of what Gillmor had to say, taken from this June 2005 column I wrote for Digital Journal magazine:

In his book We The Media: Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people, highly respected technology columnist Dan Gillmor ties it into a number of tech trends that have emerged: The open-source code movement that produced Linux, the read-write Web technology that allowed blogs and wikis, and peer-to-peer networks such as the once-great Napster.

 

You can throw in things like palm-sized video recorders, mobile text messaging and cellphones with cameras.

 

But there’s more to it than technology. Part of this paradigm is thinking of news as an ongoing conversation between producer and consumer, not news coming out on figurative stone tablets to be unquestioningly read by the obedient masses.

 

Here’s what Gillmor thinks about the audience becoming part of the process and how it will impact on journalists:

 

Our core values, including accuracy and fairness, will remain important, and we’ll still be gatekeepers in some ways, but our ability to shape larger conversations -- and to provide context -- will be at least as important as our ability to gather facts and report them.

News as conversation, the idea that a news story is the starting point, not the final word. That was the promise of this new paradigm.
 
Globeandmail.com jumped on this in 2005, essentially making every story into a blog post. The mantra became "join the conversation." Others would eventually follow, as the Web 2.0 wave swelled.
 
Here's a comment, purportedly by globeandmail.com editor Angus Frame, at the Poynter Institute website on June 27, 2006:
Posted by Angus Frame 6/27/2006 5:30:40 PM

Back in September at globeandmail.com we started allowing readers to comment (or "Join the conversation") on virtually every article we publish. It has transformed the site and while we are still wrestling with the occassional borderline comment generally I have been very impressed with the level of discourse. Turns out our readers are a pretty intelligent group.

I just can't figure out why more big sites haven't gone this route...
He was commenting on a blog post about How To Foster News Conversations (which in turn points to an Editor and Publisher article, but you have to be an E&P subscriber to access ithat publication's archived materials online).
 
Here is a snippet of an online q-and-a that Frame conducted with readers on Nov. 2, 2006:

Ranald Oulton, Toronto: Heresy though this might be, I think globeandmail.com is a more important forum for discussion about Canadian issues than blogs. Blogs tend to be heavily partisan, attracting mostly "hear, hear" comments from even more deeply partisan people, all patting each other on the back. This may lead to a breakdown of discourse and sober second thought, as people read only what they want to hear. I think you're doing a better job at providing a more balanced forum — witness the number of posters daily who are outraged that you allowed other people's viewpoints through (grin).

Angus Frame: Hi, Ranald. We try. The comments on articles and on-line discussions like this one are designed to help create a national conversation that gives an equal opportunity to all to express their opinions, add their insights and generally share ideas about the stories that are shaping the country.

It is not always easy. Sometimes the conversation gets pretty rough around the edges and often the on-line editors are strained to moderate the often overwhelming volume of comments on stories that touch a chord.

On busy days, we are unable to post all worthy comments, which is understandably upsetting to people who have in good faith contributed to the conversation.

We do have a few tricks up our sleeve to make the comments better, so please keep an eye on it in the coming months.

Most comment threads at globeandmail.com are semi-moderated. Readers can report the most offensive comments, although a filter attempts to skim out posts with "inappropriate language" or other problems. There are also fully moderated discussions, where editors approve every individual comment.

When Frame conducted another chat on June 3, 2008 to discuss taking the "locks" off premium content (i.e. Globe columnists) among other moves, there were a number of questions about comments (I've done some editing to cut down on the volume):

Coyote from Canada writes: ....

One more point. Globe and Mail reporters have been exploring the shift from paid media stars to FREE bloggers and other free media. You need to also adjust to this paradigm, and this will be the hardest for newspaper people to do. It seems that in the newspaper business there is a kind of chauvinism where non-professionals are scorned as less valuable than paid staff.

You need to recognize the value of the input of your readers, not only to the newspaper business, but to democracy and civic participation. A revolution is brewing and will the Globe and Mail be Victim or Champion?

Angus Frame: ... Moving on to our attitude toward "professionals" compared with the informed citizens who make up our readership, I think you may want to look at our site a little more closely. Every month we publish more than 100,000 reader comments. If you add up the words you'd discover that online we publish more from our readers than we do from our stable of professionals. We also publish photos from our readers and allow our readers to lead the discussion in online chats like this one. We allow readers to set the news lineup through their recommendations, their clicks and their email decisions -- all of this can be found displayed on our Home Page and on our Most Popular hub. We know the paradigm is shifting, and we are shifting with it.

Are there technical imperfections in our comment software? Yes. Are we working to fix them? Absolutely. And are we doing a better job than our competitors? I'll let you decide…

Jeff Percy from Summerville Centre, NS Canada writes: I've recently read reader comments inferring that the G&M will not allow or post comments on stories about Israel and /or the Middle East. Does the G&M have such a policy and if so, why? Thank you.

David Guy from Canada writes: Hi Angus, I've always been curious what your policy is on allowing reader's comments with some stories and not on others. Do you think it ever reflects any poltical bias, as some readers have suggested in the past? Thanks

Kyle Olsen from Calgary Canada writes: Would it be possible to show comments left on articles based on quality as voted by users, rather than mere speed. The comments seems to have declined in quality, and a rather a source of humour than even somewhat intelligent discussion. Maybe requiring real names be listed would slow down the vitriol that appears on some articles and give commentators a pause for thought? In any case, good job on following the New York Times - only a couple years late to the party?

Patrick Bramwell from Calgary Canada writes: Comments, where allowed, on news stories often range from the hysterical through the viciously partisan to the just plain wrong. Is there truly any moderation going on? If so, should there be more?

Angus Frame: Hi All -- I'll try to get to all of these as best I can. We do not have a policy frobidding comments on stories about the Middle East and Israel. Unfortunately, there are a minority of posters in our community who continually violate our stated polices for commenting when it comes to Middle Eastern issues, so we have been forced to either fully moderate comments on the Middle East or close them. This is very unfortunate and I really hope that soon we'll be able to change our approach. In the meantime, I encourage you to come back to the site tomorrow when Comment section editor and Middle East expert (my description, not his) Patrick Martin will be fielding reader questions.

In general our policy is to allow comments on articles whenever we can responsibly do so. This means stories in open court are not open, stories about issues that have unfortunately attracted too many comment violators are closed and stories, such as obits, are often closed if from an editorial perspective we feel the comment thread would be inappropriate. There is no political bias, though readers on the left and right of the political spectrum would likely argue otherwise.

I like the idea of adding features that allow the strongest comments to rise to the top … stay tuned.

Frame spoke a bit about the future of the Globe in the new digitally driven world:

For me, The Globe and Mail is not about paper or computer screens. It is about great journalism and an intelligent and engaged readership. So while the means for delivering the journalism may evolve the strength of the journalism and the quality of the readership is what will carry us into the future.

This 2007 Pro PR blog posting -- Citizen journalism - A weapon of 'mass' destruction? -- has Frame and several other online journalism luminaries discussing citizen journalism (which can be considered as part of the news-as-conversation paradigm) at ICE2007.

This 2007 PressThink posting -- Twilight of the curmudgeon class -- had globeandmail.com come under criticism for ignoring some comments about possible errors in a Jack Kapica 'Cyberia' posting.

Despite some bumps in the road, the momentum was clear. Note this March 4, 2008 CBC News Editors' Blog posting by Jonathan Dube, editorial director of CBC.ca:

CBC News is committed to creating thoughtful conversations around the news and we believe that you, our readers, have a lot to contribute.

So I'm delighted to announce that CBCNews.ca has added two exciting new features to our news stories: reader comments and recommendations.

Readers can now post comments at the end of every news story. In addition, every reader posting comments will get a personal profile page that displays all of the comments he or she has posted on our site.

Quite a revolutionary thing to try in 2008. :)

Now, could someone explain to me why the CBC.ca politics blog doesn't allow comments? Or why its posts are anonymous?

On another note, Esther Enkin, then CBC's acting editor in chief, made the initial blog post on Oct. 9, 2007. She wrote, in part:

This is a place for us to have a conversation with you about what we do, how we do it and why we do it. We hope to explain, and explore, the editorial dilemmas that face us as a public broadcaster in this exciting, ever changing modern media environment.

She didn't respond to even one comment made in response to her post. Some conversation. She did deign to answer four questions in June about why CBC wouldn't run the full Bernardo interview video. Neither Enkin or anyone else has posted to the editors' blog since.

Tony Burman, former head of CBC News, did write letters from the editor-in-chief, but didn't really mix it up with the hoi polloi either.

While one can rightfully fret about the nasty tone of some online discussions, the real issue might be the continued one-sided nature of the news-as-conversation paradigm.

Globeandmail.com does a better job of engaging with readers, as witnessed by Frame's online chats.

But if someone could please point me to a Canadian news website where reporters answer legitimate questions from readers that are posed in online forums, I'd be most grateful.

It's one thing to complain about the lowbrow nature of much forum commentary, but if one doesn't do much to reward those who do come to add to the conversation, if only by asking good questions, then the media should shut up.

But another problem is that the news-as-conversation model doesn't square well with the objectivity model.

A quick objectivity anecdote: I gave a talk on covering courts back in the early 1990s at the University of Regina. When I described one case, a student interjected and said: "You make it sound like you think the judge made a mistake. That's not very objective!"

Oh brother. :)

If the point of objectivity is to squeeze all thoughts from journalists' heads, then we're better off with raging bias. Or transparency.

Here's Dan Gillmor in a 2005 blog posting:

... The idea of objectivity is a worthy one. But we are human. We have biases and backgrounds and a variety of conflicts that we bring to our jobs every day.

I'd like to toss out objectivity as a goal, however, and replace it with four other notions that may add up to the same thing. They are pillars of good journalism: thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency.

The lines separating them are not always clear. They are open to wide interpretation, and are therefore loaded with nuance in themselves. But I think they are a useful way to approach quality journalism. They are, moreover, easier to achieve in an online setting.

He said one part of transparency would be linking to "source material as much as possible, bolstering what we tell people with close-to-the-ground facts and data."

To me, this is just a journalistic application of the scientific method.

Transparency, to me, also means genuine interactivity. Saying you're going to have a conversation, but then going mute, isn't being interactive or transparent. If that's driven by fears of compromising "objectivity," which is a worthy but ultimately unachievable goal that sets you up for failure, then I think it's worth chucking the term. In any event, if you're dodging legitimate questions, then that very act will call your objectivity into question.

The problem of immoderate comments can easily be solved through moderation.

The problem of carrying out online conversations with people, given some of the legacy strictures in place, remains more difficult to solve.

But the industry may want to take some chances. Back in April, the participants in the online-news discussion list were wringing their hands over the relatively low frequency of repeat visits to news sites, which is bad news for a business where ad revenues are based on page views.

They may also want to heed the words of Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo, who talks about a journalism of iteration and intimacy that has made his site journalistically and commercially successful. Leonard Witt's musings about representative journalism are also worth considering for geographically-based communities.

There's a YouTube video of a speech Marshall gave at Harvard back in May. It's worth watching if you care about this stuff. And if you made it this far, you do. :)