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Let's rebut the arguments against story comments

OK, hopefully I'm not the only one working on implementing story comments on our newsroom's web site. If you're game, I'd love to hear all the excuses you've heard about why you shouldn't have story comments on your site -- and what arguments you've used to rebut them. Heck, I'd even love to hear the unrebutted excuses, and maybe we can all figure out the rebuttal.

Favorites so far:
"Why are we doing this, anyway? What's the reason?"
"Sources will be reluctant to talk to us if they can be savaged online."

Full disclosure: I would, of course, like to credit you all and use the feedback for an entry on my blog. The idea spawned by Steve Outing's post on his "growingyournewswebsite.com" site.

Tags: comments, story

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Comment by Kurt Greenbaum on March 25, 2008 at 11:33am: Andrew: Thanks for the heads-up on the New Yorker article. I hadn't seen it.

Comment by Kleske on March 25, 2008 at 11:07am: From the New Yorker article of today:

On the Huffington Post, (Jonah) Peretti explains, news is not something handed down from above but “a shared enterprise between its producer and its consumer.” Echoing (Rupert) Murdoch, he says that the Internet offers editors “immediate information” about which stories interest readers, provoke comments, are shared with friends, and generate the greatest number of Web searches. An Internet-based news site, Peretti contends, is therefore “alive in a way that is impossible for paper and ink.”

As we all preach to the choir on this topic, too many newspapers continue to hope they'll find the magic bullet to save the print edition while - defying common wisdom - allocating as little as possible to the Web, not only in terms of breaking news content but in interactivity. So, my argument to any of the comment detractors is, if you still want to be in the news business 2, 5 or 10 years from now, you must swallow this often-bitter pill because this is what readers expect if not demand from legitimate news organization. If we don't do it, someone will. It will take resources to do it right and it can cause problems but the pay-off in the long-run is worth it.

Comment by Kurt Greenbaum on March 25, 2008 at 8:56am: I think you did the right thing. Address the accusation head-on and insist on proof. It wouldn't help the cause to delete the comment; that would just leave a festering issue. It's one thing if the reader is making statements that can be rebutted and discussed. It seems to me that it's another if the reader is just posting personal attacks or name-calling. Nobody has to put up with that and I wouldn't have a problem deleting those comments -- just like I'd delete them if they were attacks on another reader.

I'd be curious to hear other points of view.

Comment by Whitney Rhodes on March 24, 2008 at 11:15pm: How do you manage comments that attack the integrity of your reporters? For example, this week we posted an article on the Funk the War protests in DC and a commenter claimed that the reporter covering the story was a plagiarist.

I worked for another publication in the fall and we did have one instance of plagiarism ... however that was with a different reporter. Perhaps the commenter was confused? Either way, the comment was an attack and potentially damaging to an innocent reporter's name.

How I handled it:
I questioned the commenter - asking what they meant. The commenter has yet to respond.

Have any of you encountered a similar scenario?

Comment by John DeMings on March 17, 2008 at 8:48pm: Thanks, Kurt. It'll be interesting watching it all sort out.

Comment by Kurt Greenbaum on March 17, 2008 at 8:41pm: I think you're right, John. Canadian libel law, as I understand it, just sucks for journalists. I wish I had a good resource to share with you. Meanwhile, an appellate court in the states just reaffirmed protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in a case involving Craigslist.

Comment by John Moriello on March 17, 2008 at 7:59pm: The issue of advertisers not wanting to be on a comments-enabled page is genuine. I ran into it when it came to forums and boards like YABB, etc.

It was easy enough to program their campaigns onto other pages instead. As is the case with so many aspects of the Web, resistance declined as time went on.

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On the subject of solutions in general, I've heard success stories for sites using software that gives certain trusted users limited admin rights to delete posts that are way out of bounds.

Comment by John DeMings on March 17, 2008 at 7:54pm: I don't know that the libel issue has been put to rest here in Canada and haven't heard of any legal cases discussing just this point. Anyone?

Comment by Zac Echola on March 17, 2008 at 1:56pm: You just reminded me of one more, Howard.

"Advertisers won't want their ads next to comments they don't like."

Advertisers don't want their ads next to stories they don't like, but that doesn't stop you from writing the story.

Advertisers care about their returns on their investment not your content. More page views and better targeted advertising leads to more CPMs and more clicks/conversions.

Comment by Howard Owens on March 17, 2008 at 1:25pm: Ah, but there is a business strategy ...

Page views = $$ (unless your sales staff is asleep, as many are), and comments lead to more page views.