I’ve seen so much discussion about how blogging is affecting how news is reported & sales of newspapers. Yesterday it dawned on me how newspapers have integrated aspects of social media into their online presence.
At my house we admit that once we had access to the regional newspaper online, we quit taking delivery of the hard copy. At first only a portion of the articles were represented & no photos. Now it’s evolved so that most of the articles are there & many photos are included.
In the past newspapers delivered the news & could be shared with neighbors (whether literally by passing sections of the paper itself or through discussion). The online version has integrated a new version of that interaction by allowing comments to be added to articles.
Yesterday I was listening to my husband read the responses to an article that was written about his work & I realized that the comments were adding a whole a new perspective to the article. One man’s comment was defending my husband’s work & the man is a stranger to us. In another article about a police offer being found not guilty of an event that happened 16 months ago the first comment states that he was glad that the jury listened to the case after the media had tried it. What a powerful statement that can be posted there for many to read!
I see that you can also sign up for email & mobile notifications of news & weather. The Grand Forks Herald is a small paper so I’m impressed with the options. In looking at other newspapers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has considerably larger circulation & just offers ‘Most emailed’ & ‘Most viewed’.
So then I checked out the New York Times & they allow comments on select articles. I wonder what their criteria is for choosing?
So many questions came to mind:
- What do the comments add?
- Do they build community?
- Will subscriptions drop as a result of the ability to read online & participate?
- Do the same people participate on a regular basis?
- Do the reporters read the comments & consider them for future stories?
- How much time does it take to moderate? I see ‘report’ buttons
- Are many newspapers offering this service?
- TV is putting short video clips of their footage – are they allowing comments?
What are your thoughts on this?
If i remember correct I was watching on TV the Singapore version of American Idol and viewers were texting in their comments real time, one fueling the next comments…I thought I was seeing a new kind mobile-based community. One who’s primary communication device is a mobile set, pass the regular PC. At least in my country the TV station recognizes the power of social media, and setting new form channels to connect them.
First off, Connie, your coolness-by-association score just went up several notches based on your husband’s profession (and his quotes in the article) :-)
Clark Hoyt — the Public Editor for the NY Times posted a bit of a history and his thoughts on allowing comments (and moderating them) last month in a piece called “Civil Discourse, Meet the Internet:” http://tinyurl.com/2zmlvv
That spawned a moderate thread on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/ypeefo
My sense is that there will be more and more of this sort of functionality, and journalists will adapt in many ways — posting stories faster (the print editions evolving, possibly, to being only a subset of the content posted by staff journalists over the prior 24 hours) and by following the comments (as story sources, as well as ways to extend the stories by summarizing comments in a follow-on piece).
If anything, it sort of makes sense that smaller papers are adopting new media faster than the giants in the space: it’s a way to make a relatively small investment (I have visions of “the publisher’s/editor’s teenage kids working on it) and generate both more content and a larger reader base. The challenge remains as to how to make that a workable business model, as paid subscriptions to online content do not seem to work. And local papers tend to rely more heavily on local businesses for advertising revenue, right? Now, as those local businesses move to the web and start having an online presence where they can sell their products to a much broader audience (for some reason, The Mad Whittler in Rangeley, Maine, comes to mind: http://tinyurl.com/ytlv83), this could all work out (and sites like http://www.fark.com are building up a sustainable presence to mine the most interesting stories from small, regional news outlets).
Hi Connie,
I agree that the comments make the digital newspaper more interactive. I persoanlly prefer the physicla paper edition and here is why : http://tinyurl.com/yww3qv
I like the idea of TV stations offering comments under programs. I dont know of any that show the comments live. I do watch an Indian NEws Channel NDTV that shows readers emails in the bootom of the screen periodically.
Shashi
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