For the Record
Dean Wright on Ethics, Innovation and Values
Toward a more thoughtful conversation on stories
Visitors to this space may recall that I wrote this summer about the issues Reuters and other news organizations face in dealing with reader comments on stories.
I’ve become increasingly concerned about the quality of discourse in comments on news stories on Reuters.com and on other major news sites. On some stories, the “conversation” has been little more than partisans slinging invective at each other under the cloak of anonymity.
I believe our time-challenged, professional readers want to see a more rewarding conversation—and my colleagues who lead Reuters.com are introducing a new process for comments that I believe will help bring that about.
The new process, which gives special status to readers whose comments have passed muster in the past, won’t address the anonymity issue, but I do think it is an important step toward a more civil and thoughtful conversation.
Let me introduce Richard Baum, Reuters Global Editor for Consumer Media, to tell you about the new process:
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Like many major news publishers, we’ve agonized over how to balance our enthusiasm for reader comments on stories with our belief that few people would benefit from a free-for-all. Most of our readers respect our request for comments that “advance the story,” by submitting relevant anecdotes, links and data or by challenging our reporting when they think we’ve fallen short of our editorial standards. It’s rewarding, sometimes even exhilarating, to see the way our audience builds on our coverage.
Audience and media: Can this marriage be saved?
Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.
Reuters recently hosted a panel at our New York headquarters called “Audience and the Media: A Shaky Marriage.” I was on the panel with a distinguished group: Lisa Shepard, ombudsman of National Public Radio; Andrew Alexander, ombudsman of The Washington Post; and Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of The Associated Press. Jack Shafer, editor-at-large of Slate, was the moderator.
The key question we explored was: “How can mainstream news organizations retain (or regain) their audiences’ trust in a skeptical world where almost anyone with an Internet connection can be a publisher?” It will come as no surprise that we did not answer the question definitively in the 75 minutes we were on stage. However, a number of questions–some quite troubling–were raised. Rather than attempt to summarize all the points raised and positions taken by the panelists and the audience, I’ll explore some of the questions raised in my mind.
–Why do people mistrust the media and whose fault is it?
Much of the fault lies with the mainstream media. For far too many years, news organizations had an arrogant, one-way relationship with our audiences. We gathered news, packaged it in ways we thought made sense and shoveled it out to our audiences. If you liked what we delivered, fine. If not, well, you could always write a letter to the editor of the newspaper where you saw the story. Now I think the balance is much better. Feedback is instantaneous, transparency is the norm and our readers can also be publishers on their own.
On the other hand, much of the distrust is not our fault. Discourse–certainly in the United States– has become far more polarized and news consumers are seeking out news sources that support their own politics or world view. That makes it especially difficult for those of us who pride ourselves on being independent and free of bias. Readers sometimes see bias when a news report doesn’t support their particular world view.
Let’s remember that the idea of an unbiased and independent press is relatively new. Many news consumers around the world choose a news outlet that reflects their world view. I worry that a large cohort of news consumers now expect that–and prefer it.
I just left yahoo.com and changed my home page because I couldn’t stand being forced to go through FB to comment. Now, I just posted a comment on this site and got your message about censorship. Censorship is censorship not matter how you try to dress it up. And censorship is subject to ones opinion, that being the censors. Therefore, someone from your organization is telling the public what is acceptable to read and what is not. That is bias not matter how you look at it. It is subject to the opinion and interpretation of another. I agree that I read some pretty ignorant or angry, venting comments that I consider worthless. But after reading about 2 or 3, I move on. But that is according to my standards and what I consider to be of value. I can’t force that on someone else because it is my view. But you have taken away the power and control of the individual to determine for themselves what is of value and interesting and what is not and put it in the hands of those it shouldn’t be in. I think that this is a bad idea and that we have enough liberties being taken from us at record speed these days. The last thing we need is an open forum to become a censored one regardless of who likes what. I will stay with this site temporarily to see what you do about this. If I am not satisfied, I will move on. I still have the freedom to do that!
Censorship is wrong. Stop it.
You should implement a democratic system to allow the ideas to be presented but “filed” under categories by other readers. One category would reflect “contribution”. Another could be called “rant” where yet another “does not apply”.