Analysis - by Patrick Thornton on Friday, July 25, 2008 11:20 - 15 Comments
Comments add value to newspaper Web sites
Sorry Gawker, but you’re dead wrong that newspapers should stop allowing people to comment on stories.
Really, really wrong.
Comments add value to Web sites, they drive traffic and build communities. The problem with most newspaper Web sites is that they are comment ghettos — sections of Web sites that are left uncultivated and unloved by newspaper staffs. In fact, many newspaper forbid employees from interacting with readers in the comments section of stories and posts.
That’s the real problem.
Of course there isn’t a shred of evidence or proof in the Gawker post about why newspapers should stop allowing comments. All Gawker can offer up (and I’m fairly convinced their post was simply link bait, which many of us took) is that comments can be acidic or inappropriate.
Well, duh. That’s because people can be acidic and inappropriate. The only reason I’m responding to this post is because many people within the journalism sphere — especially people who aren’t fond of many Web tools — are going to use the Gawker post to justify not allowing people to comment.
If a news organization is not willing to cultivate comments and build a community, then, yes, comments may not be a great idea. But that’s the real problem. Newspapers should care about building a community.
Several beat bloggers that we track have exceptional comments sections on their blogs. Why? Because they actively engage users and write back to them.
They care about what their users have to say, and their users know it. How many newspapers can honestly say that?
When the SciGuy Eric Berger started blogging he tried to respond to as many comments as possible on his blog. He finds that people are much less willing to write inappropriate things on his blog if they realize that someone — especially the original author — is reading what they are writing and judging them on it.
Berger even — gasp — moderates every comment on his blog. He owns his comments. He cultivates his community.
"It does take time to moderate, but it makes for a much better community," Berger said.
Kent Fischer, a beat blogger covering education for The Dallas Morning News, routinely gets illuminating and thought provoking comments from his users. In fact, some comments have spurred him to write posts and cover topics that he wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.
If Fischer’s comments didn’t add value to his blog, do you think he would have a feature called "Comment of the Week?" If all Fischer got were acidic and inappropriate comments, do you think he would be inviting guest bloggers? Here is what Fischer had to say about why he decided to allow guest blogging:
Over the last several months, both Pat and Ray have distinguished
themselves in this blog’s comments section. We found their writings so
sharp and illuminating that we thought they deserved a bigger audience.
So, we asked them to guest blog. And darned if they didn’t say yes.
When news organizations and journalists actively engage users, they’ll get some really good comments. Sometimes those comments are so good they need to be hoisted up for all to see.
Gawker argues that its OK for newspaper blogs to have comments, but not stories, because blogs are for opinions and stories are for facts. Blogs, like Web sites, like newspapers, like magazines are just a publishing platform. All of those platforms can be avenues for original reporting and comments from the community.
The beat bloggers we deal with — unlike Gawker — are real reporters. They break news. But they have used their blgos do so much more than just break news — they have built communities and social networks.
Newspapers need to lift their bans on reporters commenting on stories. Some don’t even allow bloggers to comment on their own blogs without prior approval from editors. I even spoke to one online reporter who is not allowed to moderate the comments on her blog.
These are terrible, community killing policies. Each reporter should take responsibility for the comments on his or her stories and posts. Reporters should be encouraged to actively participate in the comments sections of their stories. In fact, rather than punishing reporters for commenting, they should be punished for not commenting.
Maybe this means writing less stories and spending more time on community building. The Web is about building communities, and if the only thing newspaper reporters can do right now is throw a bunch of stories up on a Web site, newspapers will have a tough time building communities.
Those communities can drive traffic and make money for newspapers. Every Web site will have a limit to how many unique visitors it can attract, but there is no real limit to the amount of page views that can be had by building features and communities that make people want to come back over and over again. Most people click through, read a story, and leave a newspaper site, because there is no real reason to stick around.
Let’s give people a reason to stick around newspaper Web sites. Maybe it makes more sense for every reporter to have a beat blog dedicated to just their beat, instead of the current model that most newspapers have for news online (not the same as online news).
But whatever newspapers and journalists do, they need to start taking ownership of their comments sections and of their fledgling communities.
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15 Comments
I think it’s one thing to communicate with blog readers and another thing when 1,000 of comments are posted on any given political story on USA Today — all of the comments having no real value; all of the comments being something that no one will sit down and sift through.
One big flaw with the Gawker contention is the erroneous generalization blogs=opinion, stories=facts. Our site is a news site – that happens to have “blog” in its name and publishes in “blog” (newest to oldest) format. Lots more facts than opinion, and also a vibrant comment/forum participation level … not every story generates them, but those that do indeed bring surprises and information and education. And sometimes dissent, and crabbiness, and everything that’s messy about real life. But one of the best uses of comments comes in the “crowdsourcing” aspect, like when we open a post about a breaking story (had a big fire last night in a busy beach area, perfect example) and our information is enhanced, expanded, etc., by the comments … we “hoist” them (just read that term the other day, love it) when appropriate … and also add e-mail excerpts to the narrative if it’s something that came in that way … One citywide newspaper here in Seattle doesn’t routinely allow comments; one does. The one that does is kicking the other one’s butt online in very many ways, and that’s not the least of it.
@Katherine you’re right that an endless stream of comments is daunting to a reader – I’m sure there are plenty of good comments buried in most of the threads on the New York times.
But you have to remember that we’re still in the 1.0 iteration of comment systems on blogs & probably the 0.5 version on most newspaper sites.
Disqus is a company that is working to start that change.
The vast majority of comments in a thread are direct responses to a previous comment (like this one). Threading seems obvious to me, it will allow these conversations to happen in depth without giving readers carpal tunnel from scrolling.
Beyond that, we still have to successfully integrate video, consistent identification, incorporate the idea that some comments may be relevant to multiple posts or articles, and so on.
The technology will catch up. It always does.
All good points. I’ll add this: Conversations based on content we create–news, opinion, whatever–is going to happen somewhere. It will happen over the breakfast table, on the bus, at the office. At the very least, we ought to be providing the means and the space for that conversation to happen where we can still be a part of it (not to mention, following the conversation beyond our own properties and engaging there).
Kent Fischer, Dallas Morning News
“Comments … drive traffic…”
Do they? That’s a statement that should be supported by some research. Hey, I’m a big fan of interacting with readers via comments — Pat cites me as a “what’s right” example in this post, in fact — but …
My blog gets about 15,000 page views a week and draws on average 175 comments. But there are blogs at my organization with much bigger page view numbers that don’t get nearly as many comments. And there are a few that get more comments than I do with smaller page views.
What a good, vibrant comment section does is build your recurring reader base. Folks interested in your topic will come back if they know there’s a decent discussion going on there. Is that “driving traffic?” Yes, in a sense. But it’s not a given that active comments will result in oodles of page views.
@Kent,
When we talk about driving comments, we have to look at individual blogs.
Some blogs and posts will get a lot of traffic but not a lot of comments. Others are a bit flipped like yours.
Let’s say you didn’t allow people to comment on your blog. What do you think would happen to your page views? I guarantee it would go down noticeably.
That’s what I mean by driving traffic. Allowing comments will give an individual blog more traffic. It doesn’t mean that a lot of comments will translate into a ton of page views, but it does mean that a blog is getting more page views than it otherwise would have.
Also, comments help bolster another important Web metric — time spent on a Web site. Do you have access to that information? Many people (advertisers) feel time spent is more important than raw page views, and comments are a great way to encourage people to spend more time per browsing session on your blog.
I think they’re important, but for now, my company only allows them on editorials and university sports stories we run. It seems that policy has been around for a while. I think a few people in this company, myself included, are hoping to challenge it. I think it will dramatically increase page views.
Newspaper comments strike me as a no-brainer. If the online world is going to discuss news stories, it only make sense for a newspaper to try and capture a piece of that conversation (and the associated page views.)
As Patrick ably notes, it’s also critical to community building.
I am so unbelievably passionate about this subject that all I could do was ignore that Gawker post. I’m glad you’re talking about it here. I won’t recount everything you said in this post because I pretty much agree with it all. I have two words of advice. Hire moderators! We do at WRAL.com and they are on my staff, as I am the Managing Editor of UGC. It’s not that hard. Close comments and you seem as pompous as ever. Newspapers need to lost the arrogance. It is so ridiculous.
The Gawker post was indeed link-bait, but it did have a valid intention: shining some light on the “ghetto” that are comments on newspaper stories.
But how did the ghetto form? I think it’s because they’ve been neglected in the manner you’re fighting against.
By hiring a community manager (or whatever you want to call it), and encouraging reporters to respond to user comments, newspapers can take back these ghettos and turn them into productive neighborhoods.
I see far too many newspapers leaning on technology for a solution to getting rid of errant comments when the solution is simply a real voice. If we reach out to users, and teach them how we expect them to interact with the site, we can improve the quality of content overall.
so we have a community newspaper – and after enjoying wild success as a result of our first five years with typepad and the ability to blog/anonymous comments, etc – we now have a “professional” newspaper geared website, but we miss the blogging/commenting part of the typepad utility. a lot of our readers do too. doesn anyone know of some kind of conduit which would allow me to somehow bridge this readership gap we have created by alienating our most avid typepad readers and be able to integrate it seamlessly into our current package? or am i doomed and should really look at other website hositing options?
James
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Patrick,
Could not agree more with your post. Could you or the bloggers you cover address what this type of community building and commenting means for a blog’s metrics. Specifically, what is the average time spent on these news blogs by users who are allowed and encouraged to comment? And why can’t the industry shift from a pageview-centric approach to one where the “stickiness” of the reader is a valuable commodity that ad sales teams can sell against?
I think if you look at most newspaper sites, you’ll find that people might click on news stories a ton but spend a lot less time with them than in areas of a website where they can leave comments, i.e. chat rooms, discussion forums.
To me, the future of newspaper websites and the industry as a whole is taking that conversation — where it’s now typically in a “ghetto” on most news websites — and bringing it front and center to the entire online news experience. Just my 2 cents. 
Cultivating the news conversation has to be a new mission for newspapers.
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“In fact, rather than punishing reporters for commenting, they should be punished for not commenting.”
Oh, I could not agree more.
Cultivating the news conversation has to be a new mission for newspapers. As stewards of information, we reporters are best placed to be stewards of the discussion that accompanies and often overshadows the news. The fact that it’s currently chaotic is a poor excuse. And though discussion tools and moderation can help, nothing builds community like the participation of the reporter. Otherwise, we’re just saying it’s a conversation without really making it one.
Thanks for posting this.