Brian McNair, a professor of Journalism and Communication at the University of Strathclyde, has crafted a decent piece over at AllMediaScotland where he points out a few of the problems facing the future of Scottish press.
But this Sunday Herald article showed another one – some journalists aren’t taking it seriously.
(As a two-par aside, I’ve often wondered if for the next few years we are in for a split in how people access their news. Many people, especially those in unskilled positions or jobs that have them out and about, still pick up a paper, especially with their rolls or lunch.
However desk jockies – especially those who drive door to door from home to office – access their news media online (and traditionally hit Yahoo News, BBC or some other trusted form) or listen to the radio while driving.)
Andrew Harrow’s article asked a few people connected to the Scottish press about online comments and their views make fascinating reading. Some feel that the comments should be ignored because they are more off the top of the head than a physical posted letter, while others feel the comments section can dumb down an article.
As a PR person and journalist, I’ve found comments to be fantastic. I’ve seen new angles to stories develop in comments, I’ve seen legally dodgy comments for clients that I’ve had to get withdrawn (and if the journalist had seen them quicker they would have got far better follow-up stories) and I’ve seen genuine dialogue emerge.
On the other hand, you do get absolute idiots sometimes – see the Bob Crampsey tribute by Tom Shields in the previous blog posting here – which would suggest that the answer is surely to have all comments either screened or moderated. After all, you wouldn’t throw any old letter into a newspaper, so why let any old comment appear on the site?
The frustration I have here is that, here we are in 2008, comments have been around for more than a decade and only now is the Scottish press getting around to discussing them. There are times it feels as if we couldn’t be slower at adopting new technology. I mean it’s not as if anyone still uses Quark 3.3 is it?
For what it’s worth, in an age when people are moaning about customer and reader retention/loyalty, I think comments are a fantastic way of doing it. You write something that engages them, they reply, you converse. And in return, they may pass on tip-offs to you in future as well as being eyeballs on your site.