Keeping comments clean

News organizations seem to have a love-hate relationship with user comments. As I mentioned earlier, journalists often respond to the topic with eye-rolls, forlorn sighs or frustrated shrugs.

Clark Hoyt, Public Editor at The New York Times, typified a somewhat grudging view last fall, when the Times began allowing comments on a few stories. The newspaper, Hoyt wrote, “is struggling with a vexing problem. How does the august Times, which has long stood for dignified authority, come to terms with the fractious, democratic culture of the Internet, where readers expect to participate but sometimes do so in coarse, bullying and misinformed ways?”

I would turn that around. While recognizing the challenges that offensive comments pose, I think sites will have more success if they focus on what their users experience and less on self-image (which is not the same as credibility).  Perhaps the question for news organizations is something like this: “What can we do to create an online environment that engages our community, empowers people to share their perspectives, and encourages them to suggest fresh, relevant angles and stories?”

Obviously, a free-for-all that allows offensive comments does not foster such an environment. Rigid control of comments, including screening them before publication, as the Times does, is the opposite end of the pole. It may work for the lofty Times, but the practice sends a message of distrust and takes resources that might better serve journalism in the public interest elsewhere.

Many news organizations have moved to a middle ground of practice. As I noted here, the Miami Herald recently moved from an open, anonymous system to a registration system in an effort to clean up site comments. Another newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, recently dropped the practice of previewing comments.

“We switched earlier this year to moderating comments after they are posted automatically. We put in a flagging system that allows users to object to comments for various reasons. Previously, we reviewed every comment before it went up.  It was very labor intensive, not immediate and we couldn’t keep up,” says Ken Chavez, assistant managing editor for interactive media at the Bee.
“The flagging system has greatly reduced the number of comments we have to review.  A flagged comment comes off the site and is sent to a queue for our review. We either delete the comment all together or restore it to the site, where it can no longer be flagged since it has already passed muster.”

In Newark, The Star-Ledger also requires registration and relies on post-publication monitoring by a central Advance Internet Interactivity Group.

“Members of the group monitor comments, forum posts, user-submitted photos and videos and contributions to our new public blogs. In each of these areas, there are also tools that allow users to alert the group about inappropriate content,” says John Hassell, deputy managing editor. “Newsroom staffers have the ability to remove inappropriate content, but we rarely do; instead, we alert the interactivity group, and they act quickly. Generally speaking, this system works well, and the level of interaction on our sites is very high. The quality of discourse varies wildly, of course, but there is no question that user contributions make our sites better and more engaging. ... Ultimately the quality of the discourse is driven by our community of users, and the more open and accessible we are, the better.”

Encouraging users to report inappropriate comments is key: It helps assure a productive discourse and it reflects new rules of user ownership on the Web. And if comments on a particular story or topic get out of hand, the site always has the last resort of simply shutting comments down while things cool off.

If you are thinking about how to handle comments on your site, here are a couple of resources:
Amy Gahran’s tips on Poynter Online.
Rich Gordon’s advice (via Beth Lawton at Newspaper Association of America)

If you recommend additional resources or have tips and experiences to share, please do so in the comments. (And keep it clean )

Inventing a new ecology for news

News Tools 2008 is now history. As Joe Grimm explains here, it was an unconference that eschewed expert panels and speakers and instead relied on participants to shape the agenda and convene sessions.

I saw abundant bursts of energy and creativity, rather than the carefully crafted storyline more traditional conferences seek to create.

That may also be an apt description for an emerging ecosystem for news collection and distribution in the digital age: Increasingly individuals and smaller collections of people will create significant amounts of news content and make it available to the public online.

Key to this new ecosystem is entrepreneurship. Journalists - many from downsizing newsrooms - are exploring ways to get paid directly by the public or by community foundations or even private investors.

How would this work? Here are a few experiments:

-- Small payments or subscriptions that pay for journalists to cover specific stories or issues. Would parents in a local community, for example, be willing to pay small amounts for more detailed coverage of their children’s schools than the local metro newspaper is providing? Journalist David Cohn is working on online tools to help journalists monetize their efforts.

-- In a similar vein, the just-launched ReelChanges Web site will allow people to make tax-deductible contributions to support production of documentary journalism.

-- Could a community hire a journalist to provide local coverage? Journalism professor Len Witt has a grant to try that idea out in Northfield, Minn., where a “representative journalist” will be hired to add professional reporting to an existing community site.

These experiments are fraught with potential and with risks. The journalists will need to take care to protect their journalistic independence as they step into the world of fund raising.

All the same, experimentation and risk-taking may pave the way for future journalism that can supplement and enrich what traditional news organizations provide.

Dan Gillmor, who heads the new Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, says it’s a great environment for young journalists.  “What I’m telling students is that they chances that they would get on career ladder that people of my age got on are shrinking rapidly… That is not a problem because there’s never been a better time in journalism to invent their own jobs This is an incredible time of opportunity for young journalists”

These efforts may provide little solace to traditional news organizations coping with a digital tsunami and a diminishing bottom line.

Still, they may suggest opportunity. How will traditional news organizations interact with an increasingly diverse and potentially chaotic news universe? Do these developments suggest an emerging role for large traditional news organizations? As news system atomizes and diversifies, who is better equipped to synthesize as a more coherent whole?

In Miami, a Reader Exchange Editor

The job title caught my eye right away. Reader Exchange Editor, Miami Herald. Exchange Editor. Exchange. It’s the first time I’ve heard a reader-related job title at a major news organization that captures the idea that digital interaction is a two-way, even multiple-way street. (Please let me know if there are others.)
The new Reader Exchange Editor, Shelley Acoca, got my attention quickly too. The challenge of user content and comments often induces eye-rolls, forlorn sighs or frustrated shrugs from those who have to manage it. Two minutes into a phone conversation with Acoca, I thought: She’s up to her eyeballs in this stuff and she’s loving it!
This is the second of two posts on the Miami Herald. As I explained here, Miami participated in Knight Digital Media Center’s Leadership Conference in 2007 and has implemented a number of organizational changes since then.
Like many news organizations, the Herald is learning an important new dance with readers. Rick Hirsch, Managing Editor/Multimedia, said creating the position was a recognition of the importance of user interaction to the future of the news organization.
“We feel pretty strongly here that the whole area of user content and comments and sharing of our our content, the desire people have to interact with our news is a really important part of our future. It’s an undeniable way things work now. We were moving into that space enthusiastically but randomly.” Hirsch said. So the Herald decided “We ought to have a really smart journalist engage with this content, interacting with people, studying how this develops, and really developing a strategy for us for this whole aspect of news and information in the digital space.”
Enter Acoca, who had shown her enthusiasm for developing user content in print and online with efforts including an art contest and a Hispanic cartoon contest as features editor.
Since taking over as Exchange Editor late last year, Acoca has focused on:
- Bloggers. Hirsch said the idea was to elevate the quality of the Herald’s blogs, challenging bloggers the same way editors challenge other journalists. Acoca edits bloggers, as well as columnist Leonard Pitts. Her responsibilities include how-to coaching (what’s a widget?), working with journalists to develop concepts for successful blogs, and coordinating live chats. With the help of Mindy McAdams, Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of Florida, Acoca developed these guidelines for bloggers.
Acoca’s advice for new bloggers?
“Shout about your blog from the rooftops. Email your sources, other bloggers, bloggers you don’t know. Getting the word out is critical in insuring long-term success.
“And, oh yeah, have fun—this is *your* space in a way a traditional newspaper can’t be—the words, the pictures, the videos, the widgets. It offers a broad range of ways to express yourself. Experiment. Learn. Enjoy.”
- User comments. Under Acoca’s guidance, MiamiHerald.com recently began requiring commenters to register, a switch that has mostly cleaned up offensive commenting and cut the total number of comments in about half. Based on the experience of other McClatchy newspapers, Acoca hopes that the number will slowly increase over time. “Mostly people have gotten it or they’ve gone elsewhere. It was very few people who were posting lots of bad comments all day long,” Acoca said. Since registration began in mid-March, Acoca said she has had to deny access to about one commenter per week for using offensive language after being warned.
Acoca is very enthusiastic about the value of commenting. Comments, she says, are a way for the public to get information that journalists might not be able to get.
- Online traffic. Acoca is trying to provide MiamiHerald.com with a more sophisticated view of its online traffic, particularly tracking readers of different content seem to go onto the site so the Web site can serve up updates at times that make the most sense for different topics and readers.

Acoca is on the frontline of the changing role of news organizations in the digital age. “Part of it is community building. We aren’t the ones who are going to do that. We’re the facilitators. We should let other people take that ball and run with it. It’s worth reading the stuff that people put up there. they have some really good ideas. Newspapers lost ground for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons might be that we were victims of our own arrogance. we served up the same menu every day. The food we liked as opposed to the food they liked. Now we’re giving readers choices.”

Acoca also has a good vantage point for seeing change in the culture of the Miami newsroom. “We’re all learning together. That’s created a more collegial situation. It’s all learning from each other. There’s not big expert who can teach you everything any more. It’s a much more egalitarian thing.”

First, the leadership emphasized that she didn’t need to have all the answers right away. Rick Hirsch told her “ ‘Don’t worry if you have days when you don’t know what to do with yourself,’ “ Acoca recalls. I did have a lot of those days. There’s no map.”

If I were starting a new and challenging job, I think that’s one of the most helpful things the boss could say.

What are your strategies for engaging with the public online? Please join the conversation.

Patrick Hogan offered this comment when I mentioned the Reader Exchange Editor in an earlier post:
“The Reader Exchange Editor position is intriguing, although it’s something smaller papers (which you’ll find frequently have the same volume of comments or more), can’t afford”

That’s a very good point. At the same time, your newsroom might consider allocating even a few hours a week of a journalist’s time to reader issues that are a priority. For example, someone might be able to spend a few hours each week analyzing online traffic. Or developing resources on blogging and training bloggers. Try to identify the activity that will help your organization the most, right now. Set realistic goals and tease out a little time each week. I think you’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish.

Location-based media: Take the survey

Paul Lamb points to a survey that Medill graduate students are conducting to find out more about how newsrooms are using location-based technologies such as GPS-enabled devices, mobile phones, interactive maps and audio tours. If you’re in a newsroom, you can help by filling out the quick survey here. I wrote more about the Medill project here.

Mobilizing for mobile: Consumers go mobile, will the news follow?

Much buzz this week about delivery of news and advertising to mobile devices. Poynter’s Rick Edmunds says it was the hot topic among people with dollar signs in their eyes at the NAA-ASNE Captial Conference. The Associated Press announced it is developing Mobile News Network that will deliver news to Apple’s iPhone—and allow AP member news organizations to sell advertising to mobile users.

What does this mean for the newsroom? The opportunity to reach more people (and perhaps more of those younger folks) is exciting. The challenges go well beyond learning to apply new technology.

Here’s a caution from Paul Lamb:

“Unfortunately, most media still view mobile as only a way to shrink down their existing print, broadcast, and online offerings and re-format them for a smaller screen. And that’s one important reason why they are not having much success to date. It’s time to start thinking outside newsprint-wrapped boxes and to imagine what can be done altogether differently via emerging platforms.”

Medill’s Rich Gordon is thinking along the same lines. Gordon points to a Guardian article, ”Why mobile Japan leads the world.”

“… journalists and media companies would be wise to start thinking about the threats and opportunities presented by a world where cellular phones and other portable devices have pervasive, high-speed Internet connections. The Guardian article illustrates clearly why this world is likely to arrive: the business and revenue possibilities are enormous,” Gordon says.

Like Lamb, Gordon says the challenge will be to quickly create new forms of content that take advantage of mobile technology and its users.

“There also seem to be some interesting parallels between the evolution of the “desktop Web” and the “mobile Web.” The early years of the Web featured “repurposed” content originally created for other media and the growth of new e-commerce businesses such as Amazon and eBay. It took some time before content creators and media companies started figuring out what kinds of content were most appropriate for the Web, and the most valuable for consumers. The same pattern seems to be playing out in Japan: repurposed content and “m-commerce” first, with original content created for mobile devices lagging behind.

“What kinds of content will be most successful for mobile devices? As with the Web, there will be some value to using these devices to deliver the same content (say, video or news headlines) created for another medium. But it also seems reasonable to assume that winning mobile content must take advantage of either or both of these two important attributes of mobile devices: first, that they are portable (and therefore, always in easy reach); and second, that their geographic location can be known (so content can be customized based on the user’s location).”

Gordon has a team of Medill master’s students looking at the issue. In June, they will deliver “a report about the state of U.S. mobile technology and content (intended as a resource for journalists and media companies), and at least one example of a journalistic story or service that takes advantage of the unique capabilities of mobile media.” Meanwhile, Gordon’s students are blogging their project here.

Is your newsroom working on mobile? Please share insights and links.

In the Either/Or newsroom, why not Both?

One common newsroom approach that blocks change is Either/Or framing.

John Robinson pointed to (and challenged) a classic example of journalism Either/Or think: The notion that journalists sacrifice credibility to meet the expectations of their online audiences.

I’m not here to revive that shopworn premise. Thankfully, many news organizations have moved on. But I think it stands as a clear example of the way Either/Or thinking holds back journalists and news organizations.

The workforce culture gurus call this “oppositional’’ thinking. It’s the tendency to see two ideas as being in conflict or mutually exclusive rather than approaching them as being potentially compatible.

So it’s EITHER credibility OR satisfying readers but never BOTH. It’s EITHER an offensive, anonymous free-for-all in reader comments OR it’s no comments allowed at all. It’s EITHER “Do it the way we’ve always done it” OR “Get complaints from readers.” EITHER journalists OR bloggers. That the last one raged long after journalists were blogging and bloggers were creating journalism is testament to the power of oppositional thinking.

The problem is that this way of thinking swiftly closes the door on alternative possibilities just when journalists and their newsrooms need to be more open to them.

As I said in a comment to Robinson: As long as journalists think they have to sacrifice credibility to meet reader expectations, they will not embrace abundant opportunities to do both.

Even worse, in the Either/Or universe, one of the two alternatives usually feels more familiar and comfortable to the journalists (Be credible. Keep offensive comments out.). The old is always going to feel more familiar than the new, so the decision between two alternatives usually favors the tried and true.

How do you encourage your colleagues to move smartly from Either/Or to Both?

I’d start by borrowing from Bob Steele at Poynter, who advises journalists to avoid making important ethical decisions when they’ve only considered two alternatives. Editors who consistently ask for and offer multiple alternatives can change Either/Or mindsets that are limiting their newsrooms.

What Either/Or examples have you seen? What alternatives have you found? I would love to see comments that explore other newsroom examples of this mindset and tips how you’ve led your staff past it.

Links: NAA-ASNE convention presentations

ASNE and NAA are posting slides from presentations at their joint Capital Conference (Sunday through Wednesday in D.C.).
Link to the main directory here.
Two Sunday presentations caught my eye:
- David Stoeffler has a good basic overview of online tactices in ”Dynamic Web Strategies for Small Newspapers.”
- A panel including Gannett’s Jennifer Carroll, Placeblogger founder Lisa Williams and Media Management Center’s Mike Smith, explores ”Building Audience in a Fragmented Media World.”

Newsroom change: Forget the crowd, find the change agent(s)

Ryan Sholin has terrific advice for pushing change in the newsroom: Don’t waste your time trying to change the whole newsroom at once. Cultivate the early adopters.

I’ve seen this approach work in newsroom after newsroom, as Tim Porter and I described in ”News, Improved.” Once the early adopters go to work, the discussion can move from the abstract (and fear-inducing) notions of change to concrete examples of new forms of journalism. Conversely, I have been in many newsrooms where executives thought that merely telling their staffs en masse to change meant they would. That’s a formula for frustration.

As Sholin says: “.. you can’t mandate mindset.  But you can grow culture.”

What approach has worked for your newsroom? Do you have a way to identify and foster early adopters?

A new venue for digital news leadership

Welcome to News Leadership 3.0, a place where newsroom leaders discuss the challenges and opportunities of transforming their news organizations and their staffs into adaptive, multi-platform engines of journalism and information.

This blog will focus on the leadership, newsroom culture and ways of organizing newsrooms to create engaging and relevant journalism across multiple platforms. We’ll report on the opportunities and challenges that newsroom executives and online news leaders face as they chart new strategies and foster innovation in a digital news era.

In the newsroom, what are newsroom leaders doing to increase awareness, change attitudes, articulate the vision and prepare people to implement it? What tools and expertise do leaders themselves need to become effective change agents? What new structures and processes are helping newsrooms become more productive and more creative? How are leaders encouraging their staffs to adopt and adapt to new technologies for gathering and distributing news? How are they navigating a growing range of demands in print and multimedia against a backdrop of flat or declining resources?

This blog and these areas of focus are in response to discussions with 20 top editors and online news leaders from 10 major regional metro newspapers who participated in the KDMC’s inaugural Leadership Conference: “Transforming News Organizations for the Digital Future” in January 2007.

Like their peers around the country, these editors were asking their newsrooms to embrace a 24/7 news cycle, to learn new skills, to adopt new attitudes and to find ways to balance the demands of print and online.

The goal of the conference was to give the editors both innovative and practical ideas for changing the culture and the operational focus of their newsrooms to embrace change in the new media landscape.

Now, a year later, we’re seeing tremendous gains of those news organizations and many others as well as their paths forward in 2008. We hope this conversation benefits other newsroom leaders struggling to make sure journalism and good journalists survive what is no longer the Digital Future, but the Digital Now.

If the forecasters are right, 2008 may be more difficult on the legacy news business than the year before. Still, news leaders we heard from recently emphasized a sense of progress, a sense that there is work to be done and it’s doable. 

For example, John Yemma at The Boston Globe/Boston.com, has a long list of accomplishments as well as a long list of challenges ahead. His comment typified an attitude that has come through in follow up conversations:

“While new media have disrupted the traditional newspaper business as nothing before, causing major restructuring, downsizing, and scrambling on our part, we have also been given the tools to enter media we have not been dominant in before—broadcasting, for instance, via web video and podcasting. We still have a critical mass of journalistic resources ... and we can establish our brand in new media as we have in print by following the same standards but using different story-telling techniques. I don’t just say that, I’m convinced of that. And while I know there is nervousness over the future, I also think that our staff—and journalists everywhere—have moved well beyond denial and are just asking for the right tools and training to do what they do in new media. That is what I am working toward.”

John Yemma’s comments suggest a guiding tone for this space: Let’s be practical. Let’s be optimistic. And let’s get on with it.

After all, pessimism has no future. Even in these challenging times, optimism just might.

So tell us your stories. That is what this space is for: Your successes, your challenges, your ideas and your questions for fellow editors who are transforming their newsrooms and their journalism.

Coming up: Later this week, a look at a leadership initiative at The Des Moines Register.