washingtonpost.com, CBSNews.com and Newsweek.com have all added comments to their news story pages in the past few months.
“We felt that it was the most honest and direct way to include our readers, add their perspectives and start conversations,” says CBSNews.com editorial director Dick Meyer. “These were all things we publicly committed to when we launched ‘Public Eye’ and we were dead serious. This is a logical extension of what we started with ‘Public Eye.’ Obviously, the internet is the only news media that can do this is a deep, consistent way. Having said all that, I have some conflicting views of our comments. I am not, and may never be, comfortable publishing hateful and insulting writing, but some comments are just that. Though we try hard to filter out obscenities, racism, personal viciousness and other blatant offense, the line blurs. Many comments have nothing to do with the story at hand. And i know the very existence of comments is off-putting to some readers; to some, they’re clutter and they just don’t care. So my ambivalence with the execution aside, it was the right thing to do.”
::Tullycast:: 