Reader requests more responsible commenting on articles
I’ve posted recently about comments on our site. I was talking about how other news organizations are looking at their comments and trying to find ways to improve the the level of dialogue for their audience.
Then, the very same day, I received this bit of feedback from one of our visitors through our feedback form at the bottom of the site.
I read your articles on the net, and sometimes respond. And I read what others say, especially those written to/about Berry Tramel. There are a couple of people who are regular ‘responders’ there who are nothing less than vicious, and should be screened from. They seem to have a vendetta against the Oklahoman and Trammel, and anyone who writes in his defense gets mauled. They attack the writer and not the substance. One writer (writing about the article concerning the cell phone usage at the OU libarary) threatened a person who dis- agreed with him a civil law suit in federal court. This is not acceptable. People should be reminded to keep their remarks germane and civil, or warned that what they write will be expunged. …. I am willing to help in any way you might deem appropriate.
Excellent. There’s one person on the team.
We’ll come up with something. Stay tuned.
Article comments drawing attention on news sites like NewsOK.com
The Poynter Institute, which I was fortunate enough to visit about two weeks ago, posted a story about a trend in article comments on news sites around the country.
The headline caught my attention:
It caught my attention because when we read some of the comments on some of our articles, it makes us cringe, as well.
Note that I said some of the comments on some of the articles.
I am convinced that allowing comments on articles on NewsOK.com is important. It’s the foundation of what we try to accomplish as journalists with a news Web site. We want the community to be engaged with the news that we are covering. We want our audience to have a voice. We want them to participate.
But it becomes difficult to defend some of the commentary that happens on our site as “contributing to the public discourse.”
Some of those same discussions are clearly happening at other places. Take this example from the Poynter article.
Some news organizations have set up formal policies to delineate which stories users can comment on. Others operate on loose guidelines or deal with stories case-by-case.
We actually do both. We have a policy, but we break that policy that if we feel a there is great public demand and greater good to offer community discussion about a story. We’ve opened comments on some articles, and been criticized for it in our own comments. That’s fine – it’s part of the public discussion. But there is reasoning put behind each decision the NewsOK online editors are making — and the audience is at the base of the reasoning.
And this excerpt:
Not everyone, however, agrees with limiting comments even on controversial stories. Mathew Ingram, communities editor at The Globe and Mail in Toronto, said in an e-mail that his paper usually only closes comments on stories involving legal issues around contempt of court or libel. Ingram believes that a lot of important discourse is lost by limiting comments to only uncontroversial stories.
And Mr. Ingram’s thoughts are precisely why we offer comments to stories like the Pharmacy Shooting from earlier this summer or the Trooper/EMT scuffle. Sure, there is a risk of the comments being turned into back-and-forth name-calling (or, possibly, much worse). But the goal of providing the public a forum to share their thoughts outweighs the obvious risk — at least right now.
I’ll continue to push for comments to be a key part of NewsOK.com. And we’ll continue to search for ways to keep the conversation constructive.
I encourage you to participate as much as you can to make NewsOK.com a place where news is delivered and news is shared.
Another man dies on the Internet
Tulsan Beau Taylor began false report about death of fighter
We had an article today about a Tulsa man making up news about another athlete.
The news? That one of the atheletes was dead.
The news made it to TMZ.com.
Oh … the irony. I wrote a couple weeks ago about traditional media outlets and the way it’s difficult decisions about the breaking news about Michael Jackson’s death. TMZ beat everyone that day, no doubt. But they also beat everyone on this story.
I’m sure they aren’t thrilled about that. Nobody wants to get anything wrong, least of all our own Bout Blogger – the Boneman.
But the moral of this chapter in the story is in the prankster’s defense. It pretty much says it all about the age we live in.
Taylor, 31, said he was surprised because he posts “nonsense all the time. I’m always joking around.”
Nonsense makes headlines. That’s why traditional media outlets sometimes move carefully.
Know it forums: Where Oklahomans help Oklahomans
A little more than one year ago, we launched our first ‘know it’ topic. We had two full pages of coverage about cancer, plus an extensive online piece under the new ‘know it’ brand on NewsOK.com.
The goal? To use the power and resources of our journalists to gather all the information we could on a topic that greatly affects us — essentially, to define that topic as it relates to Oklahomans. We found personal stories, showcased videos and organized a massive list of resources for visitors that wanted to find everything in one simple spot.
Thirteen months later, we have 28 ‘know it’ topics and plans for many more. We have won a handful of journalistic awards for the project, including the prestigious SPJ Sigma Delta Chi winner for Public Service in Online Journalism.
I can guarantee that we will continue to grow this ‘know it’ plan and continue with our mission of providing a resource for Oklahomans who need targeted information on specific subjects.
And part of that planned growth is a community conversation — a place where Oklahomans can go to share thoughts, ask questions or provide solutions. We want our audience to have a voice in defining these topics. We want Oklahomans to have a safe place to connect with other Oklahomans.
We want the interactive message boards on the ‘know it’ topics to be a place where Oklahomans help Oklahomans.
As of this week, we now have all 28 message boards active and open for our visitors to participate. You can have conversations on any of our wide variety of ‘know it’ topics, ranging from Addiction to Pets, from Mental Health to Youth Sports, from Parenting to Gardening, from Religion and Spirituality to Giving and Volunteering, or from Retirement to Travel.
Read the articles. Browse the blogs. Watch the videos. Use the resources. Take advantage of the pages that affect your life as much as you can.
Then, we encourage you to join conversation – where Oklahomans help Oklahomans.
Live from Florida: NewsOK presents breaking news
This week, I’m learning and sharing.
I’m at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. , where 29 news industry professionals are gathered to share tidbits about what they are trying and what is working in their market.
We have a lot to be proud about what we’ve done at NewsOK.com, so I submitted an idea about a month ago about the way we integrated tools to interact with our audience during breaking news events. You might remember the event as Ice Storm 2009:
A lot of smart people at OPUBCO Communications Group helped invent this method of covering the ice storm, but I intend to take credit for the entire thing.
(OK, just kidding, David Jones, David Morris, Mike Koehler, Tim Money and more).
I do know this. I’m excited about sharing what we’ve done with NewsOK. But I’m even more excited to see the presentations from the 28 other participants, including our own Yvette Walker, who is facilitating the event as a visiting faculty member.
The bottom line is this — we want to succeed in our mission:
To be Oklahoma’s marketplace for information in a manner superior to anyone else in the world.
In order to do that, I’ll spend a week in south Florida … if that’s what it takes.
If you want to follow the Big Ideas, see the live blog from the facilitators.
A quick look at Fourth of July fun
I didn’t get a chance to go to the parade in downtown Edmond on Saturday.
I had planned on it, but reality of the company that was arriving at our home later that day settled in, and I found that the time was better spent preparing for the cookout.
A Fourth of July parade is a key part of the festivities, in my mind. Next year, I’ll be scheduling all other activities around a parade.
But this year, thankfully, photographer/videographer Bryan Terry was in Edmond and helped me out. Thanks to his video, I was able to watch the Edmond parade in about 2 1/2 minutes.
If the parade had been this fast, I’d have gone for sure on Saturday.
You can see coverage of the Fourth of July, including many of the photo submitted by the public on our special coverage page. Give it one more look today, then prepare fore next year’s festivities.
It’s all about you
I enter July 4 weekend with a story about YOU!
Frankly, I should talk more about YOU! And I think I will be talking more about YOU! in the coming months. I’m proud of this Web page, where we showcase the content from the Thursday YOU! printed publication in The Oklahoman.
It’s filled with interesting stories that are always entertaining, enlightening, interesting or educational. It’s has a different tone than our normal Lifestyle section.
We need to find ways to showcase YOU! more often. But in the meantime, in case you run across this post, please take time out of your busy July 4 weekend to visit YOU!
Trust me. You won’t regret it.
Neither will YOU!
