I can’t remember the last time reader comments led to a “useful community discussion.” Let’s be honest; we use them to keep readers on the website longer. The comments contribute nothing and, more often than not, they reflect badly on the type of good journalism we’re working to produce. They might even have a chilling effect on potential sources. Why allow yourself to be quoted in an article and held up to ridicule from anonymous commenters? Comments have become a letter box for bigots, racists, Islamophobes, conspiracy theorists and various other troubled people. From what I’ve seen at my own paper, the problem with taking a selective approach — allowing comments on some articles but not others — is that these troubled and troublesome commenters take even the most benign subject imagineable and still use it as a forum for their bigoted, racist, Islamophobic et al rants and snark. Then more commenters pile on and the “discussion” quickly devolves from there.

So, in this age of social networking and reader engagement thanks to the Web, you think it would be better to maintain the one-way communication that newspapers excel at and basically ignore what readers think? Oh, OK, some might say staff still talk to people by phone and e-mail, so they’re connected. Right. But what about that buzzword of transparency that news people talk about?

The gate to the barn has been opened and there’s no shutting it now. The bad threads stick out because they offend us, but there are plenty of great threads that made my paper a better conduit of what readers really think. Want me to show you some? Here you go:

Readers collaborate to identify mystery man: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?source_name=mbase&source_id=2009694070

Asking readers for their choice of best Vietnamese sandwich in town: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?source_name=mbase&source_id=2014188693

Readers offering the punch line: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?source_name=mbase&source_id=2014784315

Yes, these aren’t immigration stories, or stories about Obama’s health plan, but they are real comment threads that build a better two-way relationship with what our readers think about the news.

Bob and I work at the same place and I have great respect for what he and our publication has done to enhance communication between writers and readers. But I respectfully disagree that it’s been all sunshine and rainbows since we started allowing unrestricted, anonymous commenting on virtually every story and column — or even that the good has outweighed the bad.

In fact, for every example cited above about the benefits, I can point to at least one that left me embarrassed to be working for our publication. Like the time we ran a feel-good feach about a female high school student involved in a community service program. She was pictured in the paper and online wearing either shorts or a skirt, which of course led to a long comment-thread discussion about whether this poor young woman was a slut, or a ho, for dressing that way. Nice. Those comments stayed online for many hours. Or the time we featured a single mom who had been cheated by a landlord, and the comments devolved into a bitch session about her moral character for being poor and a mother to multiple children without a husband. I could go on. I’ve had people tell me they don’t want to be quoted in stories or columns because they fear being subjected to the hooliganism of unmoderated comments. That’s the other side of their journalistic “value.”

I don’t think most critics — and I am one — are suggesting “shutting it down” and going back to “one-way communication.” But there’s this longstanding tradition in journalism — which maybe some newer-gen Web-focused people might want to read up on — called responsibility. Being responsible with what goes on your pages or website — or anything bearing your publication’s name — is not the same thing as being an autocratic gatekeeper.

In fact, i would argue that allowing our pages to turn into virtual electronic bathroom walls is the greatest abrogation of journalist responsibility I have seen in my lifetime. Comments are great, if they’re moderated and kept on topic. I’m completely sold on that idea. Unlike most writers, I often join in, and it can be fun, entertaining, engaging, and even useful in answering questions from readers, and furthering the discussion.

Can’t afford to moderate them? Fine. Pick six or eight stories a day that you CAN afford to moderate, and have at it. In fact, invite some staff members to come on board and participate. Readers would love that.

But allowing a virtual freefall is neither responsible, nor is it helping us produce good journalism. Bottom line, the way a lot of our publications do it now, it really does seem like it’s all about cheap page hits. Singling out stories likely to lead to a commenting circus is not only smart, it’s good journalism, which is what ultimately will keep people reading our pages.

“Those comments stayed online for many hours, because nobody was paying attention.”

I think you’ve identified the real problem with commenting. To further draw out a tired analogy, the gate to the barn has been opened — and the homeowners have moved out and aren’t minding their yard.

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