The following post is written by: Tom Cheredar.

A new trend in mass media is occurring in today’s Internet connected world, according to Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.**

“The kind of respect between people who have a platform and people who use the platform is new,” Shirky says in an interview on the Colbert Report. “That didn’t use to exist.”

I overheard the interview (mock-interview?) while brainstorming ideas about how beat reporters can use their article comments to enhance the relationship with their community. Shirky’s remark not only applies to this post, it’s absolutely essential for beat reporters integrating social networks into their work. The most prominent method for interaction between newspapers and their readers is commenting on an article. However, I rarely witness reporters utilizing their comments. 

Below, I’ve listed four ways beat reporters can use article comments:

Read every comment
It’s important for reporters to read every comment written about an article. I’d suggest waiting a few days after publishing it to the web to get the full effect. While this can seem daunting to most beat reporters who may write two articles per day, it’s crucial to building your community. Choose one or two “enterprising” stories to follow if you post multiple times a week.

Responding to comments
This is particularly important in the same way publishing “letters to the editor” is important. The argument that most comments serve only as a trash bin of ignorant and distasteful comments does not hold up for long if you reach out to those who make an effort to say something thoughtful about your work. Also, when reader comments  point out errors or unintended omissions in an article, add an update at the top. Be sure to plug the person who pointed it out as well.

Ask a Question
Sometimes you may have an article that is basically just a news post or something that doesn’t lend well to discussion. In these instances, it may be appropriate to ask a question at the end of an article. Make sure the question stands out from the main body of the article (by using italics or a different font). Can you think of some examples?

Write a Story
I’ve seen where magazines and newspapers will extract user comments from a variety of stories and combine them into one post. While this may have been the only option in a pre-Internet world of print media, it seems (to me) lazy and ineffective without context. If you’d really like to gain the respect of your Web readers/users — as suggested from Shirky’s comment — you may want to write a story about the reaction you got to a particular article or group of articles. Again, make sure you attribute the users who left the comment. Keep it short and easy to read.