Forum Communications Zac Echola said the only way to deal with comments is to get your hands dirty.

By that he means you have to interact with the public, but that doesn’t necessarily mean spending large amounts of time on comment moderation. I’ve found by interviewing different people that beat reporters and bloggers who interact with users tend to keep things cleaner and more on topic.

Forum Communications allows it individual papers to decide how they want to handle comments. Some are very hands on with moderation, while others are more hands off. Echola believes you have to pick a method and stick with it. He has noticed some publishers and editors spend a lot of time nitpicking over which comments to approve.

“Comments are one of those things that if you want to, you can let them take up a lot of your time,” he said. “Personally, while I think we should engage and should work in some sort of way, discussing things with people on comment boards, I don’t necessarily think it has to be this thing that has to be constantly monitored and constantly watched.”

That’s an interesting take on comment moderation. A lot of newspapers choose to go the other route, spending a lot of time on moderation but very little time on reader interaction. While the latter method may keep comments PG, it won’t help foment strong conversations.

Echola has some tips for spotting suspect comments quickly and easily. Comments that are in all caps or are all lowercase are often written by trolls or are probably a personal attack. Really long and really short posts also are a red flag for Echola.

Echola discusses these points and much more.

Click here to stream the interview. Or download the MP3.

We’re in the process of redesigning BeatBlogging.Org with a new design that will better mesh with our goals for the project moving forward.

This is your chance to provide feedback. What do you like about BeatBlogging.Org? What do you dislike?

What features would you like to see? What kinds of content appeal to you? How can we serve you better?

This site is tool to help journalists and journalism organizations learn about how to innovate on the Web with beat reporting. Help us make that tool better.

Watch NYU’s PressThinker Jay Rosen describe what beat blogging is all about as he answers the question, what would you do if you were a print reporter today?

Rosen talks about how not only is content important but also connections. That’s a key part of beat blogging. Beat blogging is about making connections online to allow beat reporters to do their jobs better.

Watch the video; it’s well worth your time.

Easily one of the biggest negatives of comments on blogs and Web sites is the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) that is spouted off by users that is intended to confuse or deceive fellow users.

FUD is not always malicious, but it is usually spread by people who are strongly for or against something. For instance, Kent Fischer gets FUD on his blog from people who are against the Dallas Independent School District and vice versa.

FUD can be caused by passing along information that a person believes to be correct, but actually is false. Most often, however, FUD is a deliberate attempt to spread misinformation.

Virtually any Web site or blog that gets enough users will have at least some amount of FUD. The best beat bloggers, however, don’t allow FUD to take hold on their blogs. Those beat bloggers take ownership over the comments and community that forms on their beat blogs.

If one person posts FUD, it’s more than likely that others have the same beliefs. So rather than delete offending posts, many beat bloggers choose to directly respond to those posting FUD to correct them and sometimes admonish them. The SciGuy Eric Berger is very good at dispelling FUD.

Let’s look at a benign example. Recently Berger made a post about how most foreign students who come to America for science and engineering PhDs stick around after they graduate. Here is an an exchange from his blog

One user wrote about why he believes some people being educated in the U.S. are looking to move to other countries:

The trend is reversing because this country is not funding
enough research. Taiwan is. Korea is. China is. Canada is. I will have
exceptional mobility once I have my PhD. I am going to go where the
science is being done. Whether that is a city in the US or Seoul is
largely irrelevant to me. Any modern country with reasonable freedoms
will do. I you want me here, you’d better cough up the money.

Berger responded with:

While some of this might be true, the U.S. still funds about 40 percent of the world’s science R&D.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2008/RAND_RB9347.pdf

Has the country made some poor choices and has the budget tightening
of the last several years hurt? Unquestionably. But in many (though not
certainly all, such as superconductors) fields your best bet for
cutting edge research is right here.

So, while it may be true that the U.S. has cut down on R&D spending recently, it still spends a lot on R&D compared to the rest of the world. In fact, Berger’s post, Do most Chinese students come here to steal secrets? was an attempt to dispel FUD perpetrated by a U.S. Congressman.:

In any case, this fear was probably most bluntly articulated by U.S. Rep. John Culberson,
whom I heard speak on this issue a few years ago at a science luncheon
in Houston. Many professors from local universities were there. During
a Q&A, the Congressman was asked about the problem with
foreign-born students obtaining visas after 9/11. He responded:

“A concern that I continue to see is that a lot of those
scientists from communist China, my impression is, and correct me if I
am wrong, come here and learn as much as they can, and then leave. And
I’m not really all that much into helping the communists figure out how
to better target their intercontinental ballistic missles at the United
States. They basically steal our technology for military applications.
And they are red China, let’s not forget.”

The answer is a strong no. Berger points out that the five-year stay rate of students from China is 92 percent. That’s higher than India, Taiwan and South Korea. The majority of foreign doctoral students in the sciences come from those four countries.

Berger does not allow disinformation to be spread from his blog. He actively engages his users and takes ownership over the conversation on his blog.

Is it irresponsible for news organizations to allow FUD to go unchallenged? Is this another reason why beat reporters and bloggers need to take responsibility for the comments on their own stories and posts?

Kent Fischer, an education blogger for The Dallas Morning News, has scored multiple A1 stories and hundreds of blog comments because some of his readers alerted him to new grading policies for the Dallas Independent School District.

At first, Fischer didn’t think the new policies were a big story, but then some of his readers provided him with documents that persuaded Fischer to think otherwise. Fischer published those documents on his blog and a firestorm ensued. He has received hundreds of comments from teachers, parents and the general public about the situation.

Most of the comments are negative towards the new policies. The story has now even garnered national attention.

Fischer’s credibility was called into question before his readers once again stepped up and provided him with documents to prove his accusers wrong. The school district tried to claim that the documents were just drafts and that Fischer jumped the gun by publishing them. Fischer’s readers provided documents that proved that the district had been referring to them as finalized.

Fischer has been blogging for a little more than half a year, and he is beginning to find new sources through his beat blog. His new sources and blog were the main reasons why Fischer was able to break this story.

Listen as Fischer recounts how his blog readers have handed him a major story and how they have acted as a truth squad to dispel the district’s FUD.

Click here to stream the interview. Or download the MP3.

Kent Fischer’s blog posts about the Dallas Independent School District relaxing its grading policies were called into question by a district spokesman on another blog.

Fischer’s blog posts and A1 stories about DISD lowering its standards has caused an outcry among teachers, parents and the general public. It has even begun to garner national attention in such publication as The Wall Street Journal. Clearly, DISD has a public relations nightmare on its hands.

Fischer’s reporting was called into question by another blogger who
said the whole situation was overblown. DISD had begun to disseminate
its spin to bloggers and media outlets.

DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander claimed that what Fischer and The Dallas Morning News had published was in fact a draft copy of the new grading policy. FrontBurner blogger Tim Rogers called on the Morning News to print a clarification, and scolded Fischer and the Morning News for making a big deal out of a draft policy.

Just as Fischer’s blog readers helped break this story open, they also helped slap down district spin. For back story, here is a good primer on the first scoop that Fischer’s blog readers gave him about the school district.

This is where the story gets interesting. Normally, Fischer would have no way to prove that the documents were not drafts but rather finalized documents. Again one of his blog readers stepped up and provided him with critical information:

In case you’d rather not click the link and read it for yourself, I’ll cite the pertinent passage here:

Attached please find the finalized EIA regulation,
powerpoint and parent letters (English and Spanish) that will help to
clarify the regulation grading changes for both parents and teachers.

It was the DISD that first used the term “finalized.” One of Fischer’s readers provided him with the smoking gun. This is the first time Fischer’s readers have acted as a truth squad to dispel FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt).

Without Fischer’s beat blog, DISD’s new grading policies might have gone unnoticed. Instead, teachers, parents and others were able to see the new policies and have open debate about them on Fischer’s blog.

Web content analytics give content creators an unprecedented look at what people like and which content garners the most traffic.

With Web analytics, content creators like writers, bloggers, photographers, database developers, etc can find out which content is getting the most page views and visits and from where those visitors are coming from. Content creators can also find out which search terms most often land people on their content.

This isn’t to say that content producers should only produce content that gets large amounts of traffic, but individual content producers now have data that they never had before. This data allows content producers to adjust their content to better suit the needs and desires of their users. Sometimes content producers are producing exactly the content that users want, but they are releasing it at the wrong time of day or they are not pushing content onto the right platforms.

Newspapers have long had eye tracking studies, but this information was largely available on the macro level. Individual content producers like beat bloggers now have access to very detailed and minute information about their content. They can see which topics are popular, what kinds of content (written, photos, podcasts, etc) are most liked by users, what time of day it is best to release content, where their traffic is coming from (bookmarks, RSS, Twitter, Google, Fark, etc) and more using today’s site analytics.

Let’s look at some real-world examples:

I recently launched a new hyperlocal beat blog, Chagrin Valley Sports, and I have already altered my content based on the search engine terms that people have found my site with. It’s clear to me that I’m not covering certain schools enough — West Geauga and Chagrin Falls in particular.

People looking for those two schools are able to find my site because it is one of the top search queries when someone types in "Chagrin Falls football," for instance. Unfortunately, I don’t have much content up for Chagrin Falls. Someone who lands any my site looking for content about the Chagrin Falls football team will quickly leave my site.

Because of my site analytics, I now realize that I need to cover certain schools more than I had originally thought. I can also see which kinds of content are most popular and produce more content like that.

Another example comes from Mark Luckie. He is a print journalist, who has combined his love of multimedia and journalism together and runs the blog 10,000 Words. He says that Web analytics made him realize that his most popular posts were lists.

"It definitely forced me out of the old media model of writing long paragraphs of text, but I think that is a good thing," he said.

This doesn’t mean everyone should make a lot of lists, but for 10,000 Words, it’s probably not a bad idea to make more posts that are comprised of lists, instead of long paragraphs.

Monica Guzman, who runs The Big Blog at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, says she checks the traffic on her posts at least once an hour. Guzman said this data is very helpful for her, and it allows her to do her job better.

"Seeing this data is
extremely helpful - not only to my understanding of my audience and
what they want to read, but also to my daily schedule," she said. "If the posts I wrote in
the morning aren’t doing well, I’ll prioritize a post with higher traffic
potential for the afternoon, and vice-versa."

The timing of posts are important, as I noted last week. In general, after lunch and after work are the two peak times for Web traffic. This, however, is not universal, and detailed Web analytics will allow content producers to know the peak times to release content on their Web sites. In fact, different beat blogs at the same paper might have different peak traffic times.

Many newspapers dump print content onto their Web sites after the last print deadline, usually between 10 p.m. and midnight. That is typically not a good time to release content, unless there is breaking news. Most beat bloggers would be advised against releasing content that late.

Guzman said that audience and topic trend information only becomes useful over longer periods of time like weeks and months.

"You start to see trends in what keywords get
more clicks, what the hot topics are," she said. "And you inform your idea of what your
audience wants to read, and how they want to read it."

If you or your company is looking for good, detailed analytics, Google Analytics is a strong choice, and it’s free. There are other options available, but it’s important for news organizations to make sure they have detailed analytics. Many content producers, however, tell me that they do not have access to this data and wish they did.

More news organizations, however, are allowing employees to access Web traffic data. This is becoming more important as more content producers move to the Web. 

Kent Fischer of The Dallas Morning News received an e-mail on Monday from a teacher about new district grading policies for Dallas.

At first, Fischer didn’t think it was a big story, but he made a blog post about it anyway, asking readers what the impact of the new grading policies would be. His readers — many of which are teachers — knew more about this topic than be did, and he hoped they could shed some light on the situation.

His post prompted a reader to forward him some district documents that laid out how broad the new grading policies would be. The tipster told Fischer this meant new, lower standards. Fischer made a post that linked to the documents:

Color me skeptical, but there are enough loopholes in these rules to drive a grade-inflated truck through. Seriously, given all the second chances, fudge factors and wiggle room these rules enact, wouldn’t it take an act of God for a kid to flunk a class?

He even helped readers out by marking up a district memo (PDF) with a “quick and dirty” translation of some of the key points. He broke down a several hundred word memo into six key points.

A sea of comments formed at the end of his post from teachers who were almost uniformly denouncing the new polices. Those two posts led directly to today’s front page story, “DISD plan to ease grading standards angers teachers:”

Dallas public
school students who flunk tests, blow off homework and miss assignment
deadlines can make up the work without penalty, under new rules that
have angered many teachers.

The story already has more than 100 comments. A new district grading policy might not seem like a big story to an outsider or even a beat reporter, but to the people it affects, it can be a huge story. Fischer’s readers helped him realize the gravity of the situation and were the reason this became a big story in the Dallas area.

“In this instance, the blog really paid off, in that readers tipped us
off to a good story that was still mostly obscured from the public,” Fischer said.

The newsroom did stick to its traditional-media guns in one instance. The print edition would not allow anonymous comments from Fischer’s blog to appear in print. So, Fischer had to “go out and re-report what was already on the blog.”

Since I’m not tied to print conventions and superstitions, I’m going to post some of the gems left in the comments section on Fischer’s blog from teachers.

“This is unbelievable. More proof that our goal is to graduate, not
educate our kids. Are you really going to be ready for college or the
workforce if deadlines don’t matter and you are allowed to retake every
test failed? But wait, we don’t care if you flunk out of college the
first semester, as long as we pushed you through TAKS and gave you a
diploma (no matter how little you did to get it), DISD’s job is done.
If this is the best urban district in the country, we are all in real
trouble.” - Oak Cliff Teacher

“Wow. Congratulations DISD. I had actually considered reapplying to come
back after a year of teaching in the suburbs. Thanks for making the
decision so easy for me. I really feel like a fool for keeping my kids
in your school district. That’s two more high achievers that you will
be losing due to the Road to Broad mediocrity that you are
perpetuating.” - Pineywoods

“What a shock awaits our college ready graduates when they enter that
college classroom and find out that there are no retakes, there is lot
more than an hour’s worth of work outside the class, and deadlines must
be met. But then it will be quite a shock when colleges no longer
accept a DISD transcript.” - Taxedout

Timing has been good to Jon Ortiz.

The Sacramento Bee had originally planned to launch his blog about California state workers later, but realized that it would be wise to capitalize on the state budget impasse between Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature. That fateful decision instantly made The State Worker one of the most popular blogs for the Sac Bee.

Schwarzenegger laid off some state workers, reduced the pay of others and instituted a hiring freeze, which he hopes will force the legislature to provide him with an acceptable budget. State workers do not like being used as bargaining chips, Ortiz said.

Ortiz has been all over one of the biggest stories in years for California state workers.

Ortiz has several issues to figure out with the blog, however. He writes a weekly column, and is still sorting out how to best utilize his new blog with his popular column. Ortiz believes his blog will allow him to cover his beat better by allowing him to report on more stories and in new ways.

Ortiz says the blog is the first step. He hopes to incorporate more Web technology in the future for his beat. For him, it is about learning what the Web can do to help his beat.

While California does have a lot of state workers, 125,000, Ortiz has found more than just state workers find his blog interesting. He hopes his blog can help educate the public about what state workers do and help dispel some wife’s tales about state workers.

He says he spends about half his time on the blog and the other half on working for print. Like many other beat bloggers, Ortiz is spending more time working now than before. Maybe in the future this will change, but it can be hard to convince editors to cut down on the amount of print copy produced.

The State Worker is still in its infancy, and will have to change dramatically once the state budget impasse is over. Ortiz is hoping to make his blog into a  community for state workers.

“Ultimately, I’d like to see the blog become the clearing house for state workers’ issues and debate,” Ortiz said. “I’d like for it to elevate the discussion amongst state workers about their jobs and the public they serve.”

Ortiz also discusses how blogging has changed his column, how the blog will allow him more direct access to his readers and how the blog will allow him to find new sources.

Click here to steam the interview. Or download the mp3.

The practice of hoisting comments is beginning to catch on with more beat bloggers.

Education Week’s Eduwonkette blog has launched its own comment of the week feature called the COWAbunga Award. The feature was inspired by one of the beat bloggers we’re following, Kent Fischer. This week, Eduwonkette is highlighting two user comments — one serious and one satirical:

Starting today and every week thereafter I’ll follow his example and give the COWAbunga Award to an insightful, interesting, or funny comment on this site.

For many beat bloggers, the idea of hoisting user comments is a good way to build community and make users feel like their opinions matter. It also doesn’t require a lot of work for a beat blogger that is already active within his or her blog’s comments section.