All Posts Tagged With: "boulder daily camera"

Even though most news websites now allow user comments, it still bugs me to see so little editorial staff participation in comment threads. Having editors and reporters take part and respond to reader comments is a powerful way to keep the discussion more focused and civil. Of course, it’s no guarantee of preventing things from getting out of control, but it helps, a lot.

I just spotted an excellent example (below) of a newspaper staff member diving into an active comment thread. Kudos to Erika Stutzman, editorial page editor of the Boulder Daily Camera, for responding to a user comment that was critical of the paper for publishing a story about its downtown building going up for sale. (The Daily Camera building is prime real estate on the west end of the fabled Pearl Street Mall.)

Yeah, it takes staff journalists extra time to participate. But the benefits of being more “social” online are significant. As modern media consumers now expect their interactions with media companies to be more interactive, diving in and talking directly with readers is necessary for a news organization to remain relevant.

There’s been plenty of fretting in journalism circles this week about comment threads on news stories. My position: Don’t publish without them, but figure out ways to keep the conversation civil and ban the trolls.

The website of my local newspaper, the Boulder Daily Camera, has pretty active comment threads, and, predictably, the more bizarre the story, the longer the list of commenters. A story today generated a ton of comments: about a woman athlete cycling with her young son in a child seat who had another cyclist come up to her and grab one of her breasts. She chased the guy down while calling 911 on her cell phone, and police caught the weirdo. Yeah, you know that one is going to generate a lot of discussion.

Skimming through the dozens of comments, I was intrigued to see that the victim joined in the discussion, thanking other commenters for their support. (Many called her brave; a few said she was foolish to put her son at risk by giving chase.) Her participation in the after-publication public commenting added nicely to the story. Sure, some of the other comments were dumb, as always. But this was an example of user comments adding value to the coverage.

Kudos to DailyCamera.com (Boulder, CO) for adding a little creativity to what usually is a dull daily weather-forecast standup. (That’s Camera film critic Jeanine Fritz doing the weather.)

Here’s another thought to mix it up: Grab a random and interesting looking person off the street and ask them to read the weather forecast from your script. Call it citizen meteorology.