For the last six years, my primary task has been to work on various modes of engagement with readers, to seek their views and be an effective feedback loop for the editorial. While letters, phone calls, and face-to-face interactions have been of immense value, the digitally enabled comments section has failed to become a site for dialogue.
From the quality of online comments to problems in moderation, almost every strand that makes up the comments space has been analysed in detail in this column. However, the comments section has failed to become a meaningful forum. What ails it? I think the difference between above-the-line journalistic writing and below-the-line comments is the difference between journalism and platform companies. Journalists focus on readers, while the principle concern for platform companies is traffic. The primary goal of journalism is to inform. Its best measuring tools are qualitative in nature, and public good is its fulcrum. For platform companies, quantitative measuring subsumes everything; analytics and metrics override the idea of public sphere.
The term digital disruption may bring various associated terms to our mind: filter bubbles, echo chambers, fake news, post-truth narratives, and anonymous slander. But none of these terms is helpful when it comes to working out a modality for healthy conversations with readers. Instead of providing a means to overcome the pitfalls created by the virtual space, these words have pitted print against online. The issue is not about the medium which one uses to read; it is about what one reads.
Killing the comments section
Over the last five years, I have been writing about a number of news organisations that have killed their comments section because of its failure to deliver. The Atlantic (TheAtlantic.com) is the latest to join this long list.
According to a report in the Nieman Journalism Lab, a letters section has replaced the comments section on The Atlantic ’s website and is modelled on its print section called ‘The Conversation’. Explaining the rationale behind the move, Adrienne LaFrance, editor of The Atlantic , said: “Design-wise, comments are treated as an afterthought. We wanted to find a way to elevate the best ideas from our readers.” In this new scheme, “staffers on the print and digital sides will read the letters, choosing the ones with the most interesting and challenging ideas. Many will be published individually and will get the same design and editorial as regular TheAtlantic.com articles, with illustrations and placement on the site’s homepage and social channels.” The Atlantic ’s move brings back the idea of editorial intervention by incentivising thought-out responses over knee-jerk reactions.
Monologue to dialogue
There are multiple theories to handle the digital conundrum, some complementing and some contradicting each other, and they tend to be analysis for paralysis. The need is to harness multiple views of readers, valuable feedback, and the domain expertise of journalists in a debate that clarifies varies positions. In fact, the weekly debate section of this newspaper, called ‘Yes, No, It’s Complicated’, can be the format to reinvent the comments section. With space being no constraint on the Web, it is possible to replace the comments moderator with an editor who can curate opinions, weed out vitriol and rhetoric, and facilitate a dialogue between readers and the newspaper.
A survey on the comments section conducted by the Coral Project, a collaboration of The New York Times, The Washington Post , and Mozilla, and funded by The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, found out that around three-quarters of readers want journalists to clarify factual questions, and experts to respond to comments. The survey also managed to a highlight the idea of curation — 33% of the respondents liked the idea of journalists directing the conversation.
One way to convert multiple, concurrent monologues to valuable editorial input is to subject comments to the same rigorous editorial principles, and reduce the quality difference between the two sets of text that appear above and below the line on our screen. And the space can be opened up for one designated journalist a day from the newspaper to have an online conversation with readers in a systematic manner.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
