Firstly, there’s the cost of employing someone to moderate the comments. Secondly, in some countries, police are known to have raided bloggers house/news sites for inappropriate comments published in their sites.

Bangla Newspapers

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.