Printed Matters

Just in case you’re still not convinced, here are some good reasons for newspaper organizations to allow comments on stories on their websites. Hard to believe, but some newspapers still don’t allow comments (ahem…Toronto Star).

1. Instant Feedback – maybe too obvious? You can get immediate reaction from your readers about how they feel about the issues you’re reporting on.
2. Corrections – many readers means more eyes to spot errors. And they delight in spotting them. Let them tell you so you can fix it. Especially important in the new 24/7 news cycle, where there are less eyes looking at stories as they go up, and more looking at them after they’re up.
3. Lead generation – a common complaint from editors is that people don’t tell them what’s happening in the community. What are they supposed to do, pick up the news with a special news antenna? Hmmm…maybe it’s because you haven’t provided an easy mechanism for your readers to tell you what’s up. Give them a venue, and they’ll tell you all kinds of things.
4. Story amplification – readers will come with new angles, new inputs, new sources, new details, that your reporters didn’t catch or have time or space to expand upon.
5. Starts conversations – this expands a bit on point 4. You can get people talking about the issues, debating, arguing, adding, asking.
6. Reader enjoyment – the opinion page of a print paper is often the best read page in it. People care as much about what other people think about a story as they do the story.
7. First step to CitJ – comments are probably the easiest way to start doing citizen journalism. So if that’s a buzzword your boss cares about, comments are a quick way to get into the buzz.
8. Reader participation – let your readers feel involved, participate, help in making the news report. There is no easier way to do it.
9. Website content – comments, if well-written, make more content for search engines to index and therefore more traffic for your site.
10. Community – knowing where others stand on issues, reacting with them, having the conversation – that gives a sense of shared values.

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