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

You're basically asking "who watches the watchers" and the answer is: you. The way I've done it is to empower the folks who keep emailing me when trolls and annoying people appear; they obviously care. I guess the tricky part is getting someone to care. It's a lot easier when you start off small and your community naturally likes you because you are the underdog. But AA.com is starting off not small and putting a lot of effort into their comments section; the payoff is immediately obvious:

http://www.annarbor.com/news/cyclist-struck-by-car/

There's a number of complaints from people who are getting struck down for offtopic or stupid comments... in the midst of a useful, interesting, value-add comment thread. Eventually they should be able to let volunteers shoulder much of the moderation load, at which point the comments become a reason to come to the site and a generator of free pageviews.

 

All true. But try to get a huge corporation like Gannett to do this. Not gonna' happen. They are stuck in their old ways.

 

The examples cited here show that running a comments board can indeed be a worthwhile service by the paper's Web site-if said paper puts effort into doing it. Otherwise, it's just trashing your own brand-with no reward for selling out.

 

No and no.

 

good call michael.

 

Agreed. For the amount of resources we have for our Web site, I think having my phone number and e-mail on every article is as interactive as my 15K should be. If we had, say, an actual online department and not just another chore for copy editors, then we should explore our options.

 

Our paper's comments section is a study of the human condition in all of its worst forms.

 

More and more I've come to think newspapers have spent a lot of time and energy (but perhaps not intelligent thought) trying to become something they are not, and in the end they will have become something they don't want to be.

 

Does anybody really understand why this is? I'd love to hear a good reason.

 

Ok, that works.
I'm still not sure I understand why, though ... I'm a fairly normal person and I don't feel any need to write stupid, hateful crap, other than what I can work into my beat coverage, of course.

 

It's the same people wave like idiots when they are on TV for a nanosecond - they want the attention. And in the end they all look like fools. (I am all for commenting on stories, however - at least in theory.)