In an era of dwindling resources, mainstream news organizations are more tempted than ever to retreat.
On Friday, The News Tribune said goodbye to five journalists who spent more than a century (combined) covering their community. On Monday, I led a discussion on how to raise the level of quality for the user comments posted to online news stories.
Looking at the data tells us we have an opportunity here. On a quantitative basis, our story comments, in total, rank as a top 10 section each month in page views. On a qualitative basis, comments on staff blogs are mostly constructive and focused because they are closely managed.
I proposed we ask reporters to treat their news stories like blogs and monitor (not moderate) the discussions that take place there, weighing in when appropriate.
“We don’t have time,” was the first (and predictable) response and led to a comment that monitoring user comments does not rank high enough on the priority list.
True, the buyouts that took those five and an overall reduction to 37.5 hours per week for hourly staffers has given the newsroom a reduced pool of human resources for the job at hand (like most other news organizations).
My counterpoint: This is not an option.
If a news organization wants to consider itself an active player in the market for online news and information, it has to cultivate interactivity and develop an information exchange with its community. A newsroom can’t possibly collect all the information it needs without collaborating with its audience (after all, Here Comes Everybody).
When email was first introduced in newsrooms, many reporters said “we don’t have time.” Try to take away a reporter’s email account today.
It’s time to raise the ante. Again.
Mark Briggs 
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