For media relations executives working with client organizations to help them get a concise message across to the right community via the precise medium (or media platform, channel or vehicle, if you prefer), comments in the era of Web 2.0 present a somewhat delicate predicament.
That’s because traditional news media with online 24-hour news sites have shown themselves to be somewhat lax in monitoring comments, which can range from the civil and rational to the ugly and downright deranged in some cases, making for some pretty unsavory comment strings and exchanges in response to news reports, Opinion pieces and Editorials and even reader posted video and audio clips. That’s not true in all cases — concerned enough in January 2006 with objectionable comments on its site, the Washington Post shut them down altogether for a period.
But for many others, the value of online comments outweighs the negatives. Clearly, the intrinsic value of online comments unlocked by the advent of blogging and social media software has been that they encourage two-way conversation, dialogue, transparency … and they can help build community around an issue, a topic or shared interests. That’s a good thing, especially when compared to prior practices by traditional print and broadcast media.
In the days of yore, reader or viewer response to traditional print and broadcast media stories had to wait days, sometimes weeks to find their way into print via “Letters to the Editor” or on-air through a station ombudsman or manager special “From our Viewers” (or listeners) segment. Gatekeepers controlled what was originally printed or aired and gatekeepers controlled what comments were printed or aired in response. And, once the paper hit the recycling bin or the news broadcast was over, the comments were forgotten and the photocopy or reprint of the original article was what remained at the end of the day.
The blogosphere hoped to end-run those traditional gatekeepers in order to generate more conversation, more interactivity, more transparency in the availability of information and response. That’s a very good thing, provided the level of civility in comments is maintained by members of the community. The blogosphere felt the double-edged sword of unregulated comments with the Kathy Sierra incident, causing Web 2.0 community luminary Tim O’Reilly to suggest a blogging code of conduct — not popular with everyone, but many blogs nevertheless now have notices that the blog administrator reserves the right to approve or disapprove comments, based on what are now becoming generally accepted rules of conduct in the sphere.
But traditional news media with online sites — once the redoubt of gatekeepers in all information flow — are clearly lagging in their ability of willingness to get a handle on the comments on their web pages. This may be because of the web traffic that comments drive (yes, strange as it might seem, posting and reading the comments themselves are one of the most popular activities on online news sites) and increased web traffic means growth in online advertising revenues for cash-strapped news organizations. It may also be that with staff cuts to the newsroom, few news organizations have yet to begin advertising the post of “Comments Editor” to Editor & Publisher’s job listings or Monster.com, though that position is starting to show up occasionally on media job boards.
Whatever the reason, the negativity and uncivility of comments on news sites presents a conundrum for media relations specialists — that’s because no longer are you trying to help get the message of your client organization across to communities of X-thousand readers, viewers or listeners served by the print or broadcast outlet; now, you’re also engaging the communities themselves via the companion sites, inviting their comment and assuming that their responses and feedback will be as civil and as rational as the spirit in which the original news or announcement was conveyed.
That’s clearly not always the case and there are those readers who troll the news sites with Google alerts and feedreaders looking to attack and besmirch reporters and sources, news stories and Opinion pieces that have been published about their pet peaves or that feature their favorite enemies.
To their credit, some traditional news media with online sites, including the Miami Herald, the Washington Post and others, are now taking the same hard look at their comments as the blogosphere did a few months ago and are trying to get a handle on how to keep the conversation civil. That’s good, because we all know that “what happens on the Web stays on the Web,” and the uncivil dialogue generated by comments on their sites will reflect poorly on them and the communities they serve for a long, long time.
Until the uncivility of comments that still prevails on many online news sites changes, however, many media relations specialists would do well to think at least twice about the cost and benefits to their client organizations — and to their own relationships with their clients — of strategies that reach out to a given community through traditional media outlets with companion news sites where the unregulated comments can be often uncivil, ugly and just plain bizarre.
That is, unless you’re one of those who think there’s no such thing as bad publicity, or rather that the only bad publicity is no publicity. But, that’’s a discussion for another day. Or maybe for a (hopefully) civil comment to this blog post …
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