Confession: I rarely read comments on news sites. Not even at The New York Times.
But plenty of people do, and they have a common complaint about the profusion of vapid to venomous commenters. It’s a recurring source of frustration for readers – and editors – of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and our local daily is far from alone in the problem of tiresome to offensive comments that traffic in everything from rote partisan talking points to outright racism, sexism or simply stupidity.
Last year the JS’s Sharif Durhams thoughtfully engaged the question of how to manage comments so as to encourage civil discourse. And sometimes you can find a little comic relief – such as a couple of weeks ago, when the AV Club posted a video of a “dramatic reading” of comments that appeared on JSOnline back in March with an announcement that Kanye West would be appearing at Summerfest.
But more often it’s not funny. The paper has tried various strategies to rein in abusive comments. Readers can flag comments for possible retroactive removal, and the paper has been experimenting with having readers comment via their Facebook identities, which generally require them to use real names.
The newest case in point came last week, when the paper shut down comments on two stories after an outbreak of strong-armed robberies and other violence in Riverwest.
“I think we tried Facebook commenting on one of the Riverwest stories – people tend to behave better when using their real names – but some folks even handled that poorly so it was taken down,” George Stanley, JS managing editor, tells me via email. “We don’t have the ability to take down individuals with Facebook comments as we do with our own system when readers flag misbehavior.”
Some papers require comments to be approved before they appear, but the typical volume of comments on newspaper sites makes that unwieldy. “Some of the individual stories about the Madison protests got more than 3,000 comments,” Stanley notes. “There is just no way to police that kind of volume without an army of people.”
Retroactive moderating, relying on readers to report perceived abuse, “is our most efficient way of finding and eliminating comments that are offensive, racist, etc. All of our news producers look at what folks are flagging and eliminate the foul ones,” Stanley continues.
“The New York Times has 15 people screening comments but they have the same problems we have and are still looking for good solutions, including a kind of hybrid system with a Facebook option.”
At the Kenosha News (Full disclosure: In addition to my freelance work for Milwaukee Magazine and other publications, I work part time on the Kenosha News copy desk), the comment strategy changed when the paper put up a pay wall Sept. 20.
“Before that, anyone could post on our site,” editor Jon Losness says. “Since the gate went up, a person either has to be a subscriber or purchase a day pass to the site before posting.”
For a time several years ago, the News moderated all comments before posting, which proved to be a drain on editors’ time. Now the paper, like the JS, relies on readers to flag comments they deem inappropriate. “That sends a message to Kenosha News editors, who can elect to take down the comment,” says Losness, who observes that “comments have gotten much nastier since the big political battle this winter in Madison.”
Racism especially has been a longstanding problem in news site comment threads, as Richard Prince noted last year in his online column Journal-isms about the media and minorities.
In November of last year, the Janesville Gazette announced it would no longer accept comments on stories involving crime, courts, accidents, race or sex. In explaining the rule, Gazette editor Scott Angus told readers:
We and other papers identified those topics as the most troublesome. The comments typically start out OK, but they deteriorate into insults, innuendo or otherwise offensive remarks.
Those of us who monitor conversations on gazettextra have found ourselves consistently removing comments from such discussions and ultimately disabling threads. People simply can’t or won’t behave.
And last August, the Buffalo News turned heads when it began requiring all commenters to register and be verified, drawing an analogy between online comments and letters to the editor.
A lesser problem, but still vexing, is whether organized campaigns are behind a lot of comments – just as they are behind many letters to the editor. Earlier this year, The UK paper The Guardian published an article (reprinted at Alternet) claiming that such campaigns are rampant in industry – and that some might even employ special software.
Stanley agrees that there are signs of “attempts to manipulate comments by partisans on both sides, but we don’t have evidence other than seeing typical ‘talking points’ in some cases, often with similar or identical wording. That’s often true with email campaigns as well. They like to play with the ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ feature.” He singled out particular publicists and marketers for business, “working for the chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, petroleum industry … often anonymously or under the name of a third-party or foundation.”
Sometimes the comment policing gets a bit too enthusiastic – prompting derision such as this post back in January from Illusory Tenant blogger Tom Foley.
Still, anonymous commenting does have its defenders, who consider it a way to ensure maximum participation and democracy on the Web.
Indeed, some even support permitting the most offensive comments. A blogger at the Albany Times Union in New York pointed out that putting them out there effectively reminds us
that racism, hate, and bigotry are still very real, and not even a blue state such as New York is immune to it. We need to remember that it’s out there and it’s real, rather than hiding behind the faux curtain of a “post-racial America.”
I’m afraid I don’t agree. I’d rather see real journalism exposing that racism than simply letting it pollute news sites to make some kind of sociological point.
Of course, as someone will undoubtedly point out below, I can just not read any of them. Indeed, that’s how I solve the problem now.
At the Journal Sentinel, Stanley says the paper is crafting a system that would build on the Facebook approach but allow the paper to delete individual comments. “We’re hoping the new system will help us raise the bar and encourage vigorous but civil debates among readers.”
Good luck with that…
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