Online comments: racist, idiotic completely useless...and bad for journalism

Once every site is asking for credit card information, then we can have two-way street in the comments section.

 

The idea that interaction with readers means you let them say anything they want using the cloak of anonymity is insane. The bad commenters are scum. Any bar owner reserves the right not to serve people, and newspapers should do the same.
If it costs too much to moderate comments, don't allow comments. It costs to put out a quality product. Tough shit. That's the only kind of product people want to buy.

 

Not allowing comments would cost the newspaper Internet Cool Points. That's more important than revenue or integrity these days. We have to prove how down with the Web we really are, every single day.

 

Here are a few reader comments on my paper's Web site regarding the death of a 16-year-old girl who was riding in the back of a pick-up truck that was involved in an accident.

"You do illegal crap...bad things happen.....not much different than piling a bunch of kids in an SUV with an illegal driver." (referring to another story in which 2 teens died in an SUV crash)

"I don't think I've ever encountered a truck equipt with seatbelts in the bed of the truck. What a retarded statement!!!!!!! She put herself there. She drank alcohol. She made the choice. Period.
Condolences to the parents who didn't teach her better."

And here's some gems from a 1-paragraph story about a 17-year-old who was killed near the mall (and didn't mention names or method of killing).

"These apartments are HUD housing for government supported people. Once again, this is black on black murder. I witnessed the chase by Clay County's finest while I was at the gym directly in front of these "apartments". This animalistic crap is getting close to home. Something has got to be done to eliminate this day after day thugs, guns, drugs and ho's gansta activity. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!"

"All resdients in Holly Cove are "trash". And yes Takerespon, they are definitely moving south! You should see the Grove Park area just around the corner from Holly Cove. It's like the black plague...It used to be a good sub-division that had a lot of Navy officer types. All the yards were kept nicely, etc. Now you can spot each house that has been subjected to the black plague. They are tearing this country down."

And this is easily par for the course in most stories we run that allow anonymous reader feedback.

Good thing we offer a forum for the readers, and this "interaction" and exchange of ideas.

 

The next newspaper comment thread I read that's enlightening, amusing, touching or informative will be the first, and I've read them on countless newspapers.

Sure. But when you're watching a movie at a theater, are you allowed to stand up during a scene where someone's killed and go on a racist rant? If you rent a movie, are the subtitles filled with idiots going back and forth on who are the lower scum: pedophiles or Democrats? There are millions of places on the internet for people to comment on newspaper stories, to paste the link or, as they usually do, entire stories, and then have comments or debate about the stories. I see no reason why the newspaper itself has to host those.

 

Because if it's possible for something to be done on the web, and a newspaper somewhere isn't doing it, then that's the reason newspapers are failing.

 

I'm not suggesting that trolls should be allowed. People who leave racist and hateful comments should be dealt with, just as they would be if something like that happened at a movie theatre. Rules are rules. If you are commenting on a newspaper's Web site, you are going to have to play by the newspaper's rules.

Interactivity is going to happen on the Internet. There's no denying this. To shy away from it like it's a passing trend isn't going to make newspapers any more modern.

Comments are one way of being interactive. Maybe not the best, but if that's the case then we should be looking into a less explosive method of interactivity. Tweak the system. Bend the rules in your favor. Find a way to make it work. Don't just give up. There are options beyond a blanket response.

 

Why interactive? That's all the newspapers have been touting, and none of it's paid off as far as I can tell.

At the end of the day with all this pandering, newspapers gain (usually inappropriate) reader comments, but trade credibility and dignity.

Here's a novel idea. How about we go back to being a credible, legitimate source of news and information?

 

The usual assertion:

Newspapers should do something on the web with X (in this case, interactivity), but I'm not quite sure what it is or how it benefits the newspaper.

 

The only thing dumber than most of the comments on newspaper websites are the commenting paradigms on newspaper websites. Most that I've seen don't even require registration and zero have any appreciable troll control or feedback mechanisms.

Since there exist <a href="http://slashdot.org">functional, large scale community commenting systems</a> that filter the wheat from the chaff, it would be better to ask "how do we do that" instead of railing against the idiocy of the general public. The <a href="http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/football-recruiting/">Buckeye Planet recruiting forums</a> have <a href="http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/football-recruiting/9239-recruiting-forum-rules-everyone-read-before-posting.html>"incredibly strict posting standards</a> that are ruthlessly maintained by an army of volunteer moderators. Result: comprehensive, 80% useful threads on anyone Ohio State recruits. Created for free.

Comment sections can be extremely valuable to both readers and proprietors but they have to have appropriate levels of effort put into maintaining them. But don't be surprised when the garden you set up months ago and ignored is overgrown with weeds.

 

Now that's a good idea. In my mind, that's what once separated newspapers from the other mediums. A well-written, well-researched and well-reported story.

Doing that won't save the industry by itself. But it's a better plan than most of the crap we're having to do now.

 

Newspapers hold themselves to a higher standard than recruiting boards and forums. Can they trust volunteers to understand journalism ethics enough to patrol the Web sites to eliminate negative posts? Is that even high on their radars right now?