conversation

On an industry email listserve, someone commented that "the thing that best distinguishes us from the guys trying to start online publications in their basements (besides the really big presses out back and the staff of professional journalists in our newsrooms) is that we have our reader's trust." Here's my response:

That's the official religion of the newsroom. I think it's a dangerous delusion and part of the culture of arrogance that is rotting the foundations of journalism.

Yes, there are people who trust us.

And there are many who don't, and I'm not just talking about political wack jobs.

Anyone who's ever been covered by a newspaper knows just how thin that claim of professional infallibility really is. Sit down with citizens in a blind focus group and you'll find an alarming lack of faith in media.

Take a look at your own actual market penetration -- how many people read you regularly, and how many don't? You'll find that you are not getting a vote of confidence from the public. Look at your own web stats, and not just the junk pageview figures. How many local users visit your site regularly, out of how many in your market? People are voting with their feet and their fingers, and they're going elsewhere.

Inviting the community into the tent doesn't undermine your credibility. It enhances your credibility.

It gives your professional journalists an opportunity to listen, to understand the points of view, the perceptions, the daily concerns of the people-formerly-known-as-the-audience.

It gives you an opportunity, if you take it, to make your journalism better, to make your newspaper better, to make what you do more connected with the community and more relevant to the community. It helps you avoid mistakes, especially mistakes of omission, and helps you discover and correct your mistakes of commission.

You're not "allowing" comment. Comment is going to happen no matter whether you participate or facilitate. When you don't, you open the door to competition that understands how to interact.

The questions are: Will you benefit from that comment, or will you continue to drift away from your community? Will you take an active role in making that community conversation better, or will you allow it to fester into negativity? Will you accept that kind of responsibility?

Many editors will not agree with what I'm saying. But the 35-year downhill slide of newspaper readership testifies to the speciousness of the holy-brand claim.

I believe that if you look deep inside an editor who fears the public, you'll find an editor who lacks confidence in his own leadership abilities and is using control to cover for those shortcomings. What we need is editors who are willing to perform in public, admit their own occasional failures, exercise some humility, and learn from interaction. They'll be better editors for it, and the community will become a better place for it.

Much has been written about our project in Bluffton, SC, and much continues to be misunderstood. We're not replacing reporters with "citizen journalists." We're facilitating an online conversation that helps make our professional journalism better.

The results overwhelmingly refute the notion that comments are dangerous and undermine the holy brand. In less than 12 months the paper, which replaced a failed conventional zone edition, built CAC-audited readership numbers that compare with the best our industry experienced in the 1960s. The brand went from zero to market domination almost overnight.

This does not come without a cost. You don't just toss technology out on the Web and get a thousand flowers blooming. You have to commit your time and energy and your heart, and by "you" I mean the whole organization, not two guys off in a closet labeled "online department." But the payback is there, and the payback is what newspapers and communities need.

Jim Brady's decision to shut off comments on the "post.blog" is being second-guessed all over the Web, and I suppose I should join in ... after first acknowledging Jay Rosen's typically excellent, thoughtful essay on the subject that includes an interview with Brady. Read it before you read anything I have to say.

Brady's move is bound to be misinterpreted by many and intentionally twisted by some: big media vs. the people, Republicans vs. Democrats, whatever.

That already was apparent earlier this week when Typepad had a hiccup that temporarily hid a number of comments. Mere anger quickly turned to fury. People assumed the newspaper had intentionally deleted critical comments.

It was so bad that one poster referred to it as a "prison riot."

Yes, it was out of control. Yes, people were attacking reader rep Deborah Howell personally. But so what? When Deborah Howell was editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, she was nicknamed "Dragon Lady." She's a tough woman and she can stand the flames.

We "big media" folks have to take the heat, both personally and institutionally, even if we think it's craziness. So I don't think I would have shut this one down.

But that doesn't mean I think newspapers should never put the clamp on online behavior. I have no tolerance, zero, for members flaming each other. And if an interactive environment turns into a slum, I wouldn't hesitate to bulldoze it ... and build a new, better place.

Howard Owens did it last year when he was at the Ventura Star. Leah Gentry did it several years ago at the Los Angeles Times. We've had to do it at some of the Morris papers. Those of us who are believe in online interaction hold those beliefs because they serve a higher goal of supporting a fair and open participative society. If that higher goal isn't being met, we have an obligation to intercede.

The real test isn't what Brady faced this week. He made the call and it's done. The hard part is constructing a path forward in which the newspaper is open and approachable, but there are mechanisms in place that lead to responsible behavior on the part of those doing the approaching.