Over the life of this blog, and in my studies of the online news business since 2001, I have seen so many efforts to rein in online comments that my eyes roll when I see a new round of pearl-clutching from news editors and publishers about how nasty commenters are on their web sites.

But of all the efforts, this effort by the Sun Chronicle in Massachusetts has got to be the prize-winner for ways to kill off a commenting community. The SC not only wants readers to register to comment using their real names and addresses, they want users to give up credit card information and pay a one-time fee of 99 cents for the privilege!

The opportunity to post comments on stories on Sun Chronicle websites will be restored this week, Publisher Oreste P. D’Arconte announced today, with posters required to use their real names.

To enforce this change, all posters will be required to register their name, address, phone number and a legitimate credit card number.

The credit card will be charged a one-time fee of 99 cents to activate the account.

Look, I can understand the desire to have a well-functioning, civil community of readers commenting on your web site. I can even understand the desire to have people use their real names when commenting (although I disagree). But demanding that readers give up sensitive financial information and then billing them just to leave a comment on a web site is … well, I can’t use the words I’m considering right now on a family web site.

Of course, if the Sun Chronicle were serious about wanting comments, they could use Facebook Connect. It’s not 100 percent foolproof, but it would tie a comment to a user’s online identity in a more meaningful way and discourage or eliminate “anonymous” comments (pro-tip: when a user puts a name – even a made-up name – in a comment box, it’s not technically “anonymous,” but “pseudonymous”).

More likely, this change will drop the Sun Chronicle’s commenting community to near zero. And if I were an enterprising web denizen in one of the paper’s communities, I’d be busy putting up a web site that allows users to comment on SC-related articles without registering. Just provide headline links to SC stories in blog posts and allow comments on those posts. No need to steal content.

I’ve often gotten the vibe that a vast number of news media professionals hate comments, and would rather not deal with them at all. After all, people on the Internet can be real jackasses when their name is not associated with what they write.

But shutting off comments on your site – or trying to get people to pay to do so – is no real solution. It just drives people to other places on the Internet where they can comment without fearing for their jobs, or their social status, or whatever.

Last year, Va. Tech’s Collegiate Times student newspaper went through a similar type of situation. A campus committee was dismayed that there were racist comments showing up in the comments on the Collegiate Times’ web site. So the committee’s solution was to try to get the news org. to stop allowing anonymous comments by cutting off university funding.

Brilliant!

No mention of, you know, actually dealing with the disgusting underbelly of racism that brings these comments out. Just sweep the problem under the rug so the campus community looks pristine.

The truth of the matter is that managing an online community of commenters is work. It’s like tending a garden. If you don’t put in the work to root out the weeds (abusive commenters), you won’t get the vegetables (cogent commenters) to flourish.

The Sun Chronicle‘s recently announced policy roots out the weeds by digging up the entire garden.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Sun Chronicle Charges Readers to Comment. Brilliant Marketing, or PR Gaffe? (pamil-visions.net)
• Paper puts up a paywall for comments (guardian.co.uk)
• Turning Off the Comment Demon (loosewireblog.com)
• Newspaper Wants Readers to Pay to Comment (readwriteweb.com)
• Charging For Comments, Not Content (voices.allthingsd.com)
• Will You Pay To Comment Online? (thenextweb.com)
• Newspaper Wants You To Pay To Comment (techdirt.com)
• Community paper to charge for… comments!? (lostremote.com)
• Today in Stupid Comment Wrangling Ideas (slog.thestranger.com)

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Think of it this way — it’s a bit more complicated than just sending out a resume and hard-copy portfolio.

New media guru David Spinks says college journalists on a job search must develop a social media strategy to help separate themselves from droves of others on the prowl for a particular position. Spinks serves as the community manager for Scribnia.com, an online platform for both bloggers and readers, as well as the co-moderator of young professionals Twitter chat #u30pro.

“Social media provides a huge opportunity, ” Spinks said. “It provides an opportunity to build those connections that you wouldn’t have otherwise.”

A personal blog or portfolio site is a must-have for any aspiring journalist entering the job market. (Check out 10000words.net’s list of outstanding journalist portfolios).

“A blog has many values — you can write about anything, but it’s all about how you engage and connect with readers,” Spinks said. “It allows you to establish yourself and tell people about who your are.”

“It’s the differentiator between you and everyone else,” Spinks added.

Blogging frequently and with specific headlines to enhance search engine optimization is one key to attracting readers, but be sure to ask for reader feedback and to enable commenting on the site to create a dialogue.

A personal blog or portfolio site can serve as the corner stone to the online image that new journalists must shape, said Spinks.

“It’s really important that you shape a that image of yourself — that image that comes up when people seek you online,” Spinks said. “It’s up to you personally how you present yourself. Part of blogging and social networking is showing more of your personality and being more transparent. But then there’s the saying that you shouldn’t have anything online that you wouldn’t show your mother.”

Spinks advises that job seekers not to  overlook the networking aspect of social networking, using sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to build relationships.

“You should purposely seek out those relationships,” Spinks said. “When I was out looking for a job after college I would seek out the people who worked for the company through social networking before I applied, before I sent out my paper resume and cover letter.”

For more professional new media tips check out Spinks’ blog at davidspinks.com or the #u30pro Twitter chat at 8 p.m. EST on Thursday.

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The CollegeJourn web site (purveyors of the #CollegeJourn chats) have decided to tackle a story through international networking. The story: health care.

Suzanne Yada writes:

This is a global collaborative reporting project on health. Choose one of two assignments: For news, the question is “How does health care on my campus compare to others around the world?” This project will be data-driven and will require digging up statistics so we can compare different locations accurately. The features assignment is “What does health mean in my area?” This is an excellent opportunity for reporters to do something creative and informative with features and multimedia.

The project was created by journalism students with journalism students in mind, to get our feet wet with collaboration, information, international reporting, data and multimedia, while producing news and information relevant to a university-based audience. The CollegeJourn students responsible for this idea meet in a chatroom every Sunday, 8 pm BST/3 pm EDT/noon PDT, at collegejourn.com. (Blame us.)

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The topic was “Leadership in a Changing Media Environment.” My part was to talk about how the Internet changes the news equation, and what kind of free tools are available to enhance the news organization’s Web presence.

It was a fascinating three hours (even though my luggage was lost and I ended up in a t-shirt and shorts for the discussion), and one that brought me back to my roots in small-town journalism (I was the editor of a weekly in Texas for four years before heading off to graduate school).

The main takeaway for me was that many small newspapers are still struggling to figure out how to use their web presence, with the constant idea that it’s taking away from the print product (cannibalizing).

It took quite a while for me to argue for putting breaking news out (football updates, city council updates, etc.) via Twitter or other online means.

“Why would people then read the print product?” asked one participant. Because there’s *more* there than in a 140-word tweet, was part of my answer.

But the main answer, my main ideal that I’ve been talking about for over three years in this blog, is that “news” is more important than just the bottom line. If you’re in the “news” business, then your job is to report the news, to be the “watercooler” for your community – the place where people go to get the information they need to navigate an incredibly complex world. If you’re locking all that news up behind a paid wall, you’re not fulfilling your community service aspirations. You’re no more than the local Wal-Mart.

I honestly don’t see the Internet and the printed product as competing in these smaller communities (yet). I see them as complementary. The online presence can add depth to the printed product. It can add to the advertising side as well if used properly. But that will ultimately require seeing both Internet and print as parts of the process.

I hope the editors and publishers who left the conference went away with some ideas to inspire them to change their online strategies and be more proactive in the online space. Only time will tell.

At several points during the conversation, I said emphatically that I wished I had tools like Twitter and YouTube and WordPress and other free online tools when I was editing that small-town newspaper in Texas. My journalism would have been stronger, and the connections to the community would be deeper. That’s what every small-town newspaper publisher should aim toward.

I’d say the same for my college newspaper, where I was editor. As a journalist, I want to be in the conversation. I want to be the place people go for information. As more people do that online, I can’t help but feel we need to follow that movement and use all the tools at our disposal to make that happen.

Tags: newspapers, iowa, future, thoughts

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I spent the past few months talking to other twitter users, attended a few tweetups and along with my own preferences have compiled a list of things media organizations and companies should do, and not do when using twitter.

1. Do NOT use twitter as an RSS feed! I removed the NYT and both my local papers because all they did was push out headlines to their stories.  Don’t know why but this really bugs me as a twitter user. If all you are doing is pushing your stories you are not using twitter right.

2. Do NOT push out a ton of updates at one time. I greatly dislike getting up in the morning or after a long day coming home to find my twitter feed filled up with a ton of updates from one media or business. I don’t mind it from my friends, they aren’t selling me something or just trying to get my eyeballs on their site. When a media/business does this it comes across as pure advertising. Personally, I think 2-4 GOOD updates a day works for me, though nothing is wrong with just one a day either! It is all about finding balance.

3. Do NOT just include links to your main website if you are a media outlet. This is my biggest pet peeve and after talking with many other people who tweet they agree. It isn’t that pushing out the occassional story is bad, just give us the direct link to the story. Note the operative word here is occassional. A feed of all your stories is bad but a few every now and then is just fine so long as you provide a direct link.

Insight #1.  Twitter while it can be used from a desktop can also be used from a mobile phone. People who use twitter on their computer tend to have it in the back ground and seem to use it as a brief distraction (granted some it is a major distraction) from day-to-day work. They don’t want to take time hunting around your website for the one story you just mentioned. Those of us who use twitter on our cell phones don’t want to take the time hunting and pecking around your site in a mobile web browser. I suspect this will be more important as mobile phones evolve into an iPhone like device where you can view websites in the mobile tweet application.

4. DO sound personal. Again, talking with some in the twitter community a personal “voice” is much more appreciated than a vague, corporate sounding/reading one. It is OK to be personal. This is SOCIAL network after all, make it more sociable and less corporate communications. The twitter community does not want a 140 character press release.

5. DO engage your audience/followers. Again, we are talking about a SOCIAL network. Use the twitterverse to keep in touch with your audience and get their input.  Twitter can be a great tool to find out what is going on locally and get advice and input from a wide variety of people. Best of all, you tend to get more immediate feedback because people who follow you can get your updates on their cell phones as a text message.

Insight #2. Getting people to follow you is nice but having them get your updates on their cell phone shows they really like to know what you have to say. If you are using twitter as an RSS feed for your stories, being too impersonal, update too frequently or not including direct links to your stories the less likely your followers are to get updates on their cell.

6. This next one is more on the fence so no real “DO” or “DO NOT.” According to a 2007 story in valley wag  (note direct link) it would seem following more people than are following you is a bad thing if you are a media outlet.  The reason behind this line of thinking is how can you possibly sort through that many tweets? Right now this is a very valid point. It is almost as if your are playing the “who has more friends” game one often encounters on Facebook or Myspace. Are you really interested in what all those people are twittering about? The thing to remember here is the technology is evolving and there are some programs in development to help you sort through tweets and look for trends. I suspect in the coming months following more people than those following you will be what media outlets want to do. Kind of a new high tech way to keep on the pulse of your local area.

7. DO use hashtags. Hashtags are a way to make your tweets stand out. Twitter uses a different search engine and by using hashtags followers or other people can easily keep track of a certain topic.  While Google may diss twitter it seems according to this PCWorld blog their search engine may be in Google’s sites for aquisition.

Insight #3.  Hashtags are used in tweets by putting the hash symbol before a word. When I tweet about this blog post I will hashtag it with newspaper and media by putting (sans the quotes) “#media #newspaper” in my tweet.

8. DO it. Stealing from Nike here, you do need to just start tweeting. Will twitter be the next big thing? Will any revenue, directly or indirectly, ever come from using twitter? Who knows. What using it does is keep you in touch with your audience. They are important and that is why media organizations should be using twitter. Get someone in your organization to start tweeting – and let it be personal. If we, as media organizations, are about transparency in government, would it kill us to shine some light in the newsroom?

Brad Arendt is the General Manager for The Arbiter at Boise State University. He can be found on twitter at twitter.com/bradarendt where he tweets about his life as a father and husband, his thoughts on things from an economists perspective and on college media.

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