“Comments start pulling their weight.” By Aja Bogdanoff
Comments start pulling their weight
2017 will be the year news comments finally start pulling their weight. The recent wave of news sites nixing comments illustrates the complicated relationship most organizations have with comment sections. By turning comments off, publishers deliberately turn away the same “active users” that make social platforms like Facebook so valuable to advertisers.
“When you figure out how to improve comment sections without taking resources away from the newsroom, new opportunities open up.” This very sentence stood out to me like no other. It really made me think about the cycle of widespread news and the news food chain. Readers and news consumers are not at the bottom of this chain, however they are what makes the wheel turn. News is produced for people to consume, comment on and become aware of what is going on around the world. Naturally, with every story or article, comes multitudes of responses and comments. Yes, this can be a negative thing, however it can also be such a gift to journalists everywhere. The readers comments carry weight and potential to improve our news producing. The stance they take and the responses they give to the work we as journalists produce could potentially aid us in better understanding the demographics of people who we are engaging with and could help us produce writing that we know is what those people want to read. Readers comments allow journalist to read about and notice aspects of stories which they may have missed. Comments, i agree with Aja on this one, are an asset. Hearing and paying due attention to the network of comments out there, in turn will help journalists and newsrooms all over produce the high quality content that we all deserve, with the informational background of what is provided to them through the comments.
“Distracted Journalism looks in the mirror.” By Zizi Papacharissi
http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/12/comments-start-pulling-their-weight/
This prediction for Journalism really struck a chord with me. Allow me to put it into context for you. Over the past few months, I felt as if all journalistic attention were being paid to the wrong areas. Like Zizi says, “what is news and what is noise”, we so often as journalists let conversation and what is trending or creating chaos, to flood our newsrooms. This simply, consequently creates a blockage and leaves no room for other news, and news of integral importance at that, to get through our newsrooms and out to readers. Zizi could not have used a better and more primal example to prove her point. The most recent American Election season was an absolute shamble. She makes valid warnings of the potential for issues such as climate change, social injustices and economic inequalities to be over-covered and the threat of substance being left behind in journalism. I believe that journalism have forgotten about their readers and the people, in the midst of focusing on social media clicks and revenue. I also strongly agree with Zizi where she states that social media is in fact a possible tool for us to reconnect to all forgotten demographics and communities and tell their news and tell their stories. Mainstream noise has allowed us to forget the most important news.
