Engadget's Darren Murph has a tale of how ESPN's newsroom adopts technology:

"The iPad has been out for just over two months, yet somehow ESPN -- a massive corporation that should technically have all sorts of red tape bogging down this type of forward thinking -- has managed to not only get a setup working in its labs, but actually get the new setup working and onto shows that we're enjoying each and every day. "

I thought we were beyond this, but no: it seems that quite a number of people who are old enough to know better are making silly pronouncements to the effect that Tablet Is The New Print.

This calls for a mind-expanding whack on the side of the head, preferably applied with Maslow's hammer. Abraham Maslow was the psychologist famous for his "hierarchy of needs." He also was famous for saying "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." That's called Maslow's hammer, or sometimes "the law of the instrument."

Here are some tips for reporters about how to deal with story commenting.

Do:

Engage. Online behavior always improves when responsible adults are present.
Answer. Respond to genuine questions.
Listen. Keep an eye out for story ideas. Discover whether your reporting is informing or confusing people.
Clarify and correct. When people are confused or misinformed, post clear and accurate information. Link to authoritative sources whenever possible.

Thirteen hours of Twittering by Austrian businessman @freakingcat tells an eyewitness tale of Bangkok burning in detail that generally has escaped conventional/professional journalism. I grabbed a snapshot of his posts from a long and painful Wednesday in Thailand's capital. You might wish to scroll to the bottom, and read up.

Its getting night! Tomorrow the sun will rise again! Thailand will be changed forever!
37 minutes ago via Twitterrific

There's been a conversation under way this afternoon on Twitter about anonymous commenting and comment management. I didn't join in -- I was at a dance performance with family, and besides, I've written plenty about that topic in the past. You can Google the details.

What strikes me is that it's the wrong conversation.

I was reading Alan Mutter's spot-on Andreessen’s not-so-hot idea for publishers and once again ran across some comments of the "newspapers need to set up separate online operations and give them freedom" variety.

Here's the problem: It's been done, over and over. It's being done right now. It's happening in ways you don't see, and I promise you won't like the outcome.

Let's take the biggest, and least visible, part first.

Every one of us who opens up a website to public conversation faces a daily annoyance: blog and comment spammers. Cleaning up after them becomes a morning ritual.

Google, a mix of scammers and legitimate businesses, and global economic inequities all play a role in creating a system that guarantees this problem will not go away any time soon.