Topic: Blog commenters in the news

I try to run a pretty clean shop here at Miami-Dade Dems, and since few readers post comments, there hasn’t been a problem with nasty comments – yet.

Not so for larger colleagues in the blog business. In the past few days the Miami Herald has been ripped by the NAACP for letting racist comment onto the Herald’s blogs, and the New York Times “public editor” has revealed modest problems in the Times’ first venture into letting readers post comments on stories.

Nosing around, I also found mention of similar issues at the Pensacola News Journal. That was reported in ricksblog without (as far as I could tell) a link to the paper’s story, but at least I’ve found a good-looking blog in the Panhandle and will add it to my blogroll.

Writing in the NY Times, Clark Hoyt tiptoes around the problem with perhaps an excess of description of the Times’ need to maintain “civil discourse.” The public editor warns that his column would contain “rude and objectionable language,” leading me to anticipate the F-bomb. Alas, it got no ruder than the word crap.

The volume of comment revealed in the articles in the Times and the Herald was impressive. The Herald claimed 500,000 comments last month on stories in the paper. The Times said a hot blog topic can generate more than 500 comments. Here I’m pleased to get even one comment, and so we try to grow in interest and relevance.

This link will take you to the NY Times article, and now the link to the Herald article.