Comments - by Patrick Thornton on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 12:07 - View Comments

Using online comments in the print edition

When is it OK to use online comments left in the comment sections of news stories, blogs or forums in the print edition?

That depends on who you ask.

Kent Fischer of the Dallas Morning News does not use comments left on his blog in his print stories, because he and his paper usually does not print anonymous quotes, and almost all the comments on his blog are under anonymous handles. Only in rare, highly important situations would Fischer use an anonymous quote, and he would need his managing editor to sign off on it first.

Miriam Pereira said her paper, The News-Press, located in Ft. Myers, Florida, rarely uses online comments in print but has on occasion. In fact, a recent story was centered around an anonymous comment left on a story in February. The comment, about the death of 6-year-old Joshua Jenkins, sparked a Department of Children and Families investigation because it contained confidential information about the case. When the News-Press does run online comments they attribute them to the online handle used.

22nd Century Media runs online comments in print as a way to attract print readers to the Web, according to Kiyoshi Martinez. They only run comments, however, that are attached to real names, just like their letters to the editor policy.

The Daily Record of Morris County, New Jersey runs online comments once a week on Sundays in the opinion section, according to Kate McLoughlin. The Daily Record just uses online handles and doesn’t require "real names."

The Orlando Sentinel also runs online comments in the op-ed section, but does so daily, according to Etan Horowitz. Right underneath the letters to the editor section is a heading, "What you’re saying on the Web." The Sentinel posts full names, first names and online handles, depending on what is used online.

Horowitz said the Sentinel has also been known to use online comments with print stories:

For instance, we broke a
story on our Web site on Friday afternoon about a woman who took an envelope of
cash that another customer had left behind in the Wal-Mart check out
line. The story drew a lot of hits and comments online on Friday
afternoon, so for the print edition story on Saturday, they printed some
comments people had left about the case.

The Sentinel also accepts video letters to the editor, which is a pretty cool concept.

And then some papers have different policies for different sections of the print edition. Some papers do like to highlight online comments in special sections to send traffic to their Web products, but still don’t allow them to be used in individual stories as "man on the street quotes."

This is obviously an issue for beat bloggers as many have found that their blogs and online work attract some very good comments. But people tend to leave comments online anonymously, which makes verification difficult, unless a person leaves a valid e-mail address. Many beat bloggers still have to write for the print edition too, which can bring to a head this dilemma.

What is your paper’s policy and why? Can we even be sure that if someone gives us a "real" name that it is in fact real? The last question I have is whether the policies I have discussed above are logical for a 21st century media organization?

Maybe we need to get used to online handles like HelloKittyLove08. Is that really that much less reliable than me telling a print reporter my name is John Smith when I’m interviewed at the gas station? Or does my name change the quality of my comment?

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BeatBlogging.org was a grant-funded journalism project that studied how journalists used social media and other Web tools to improve beat reporting. It ran for about two years, ending in the fall of 2009.

New content is occasionally produced here by the this project's former editor Patrick Thornton. The site is still up and will remain so because many journalists and professors still use and link to the content. BeatBlogging.org offers a fascinating glimpse into the former stages of journalism and social media. Today it's expected that journalists and journalism organization use social media, but just a few years ago that wasn't the case.

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