Abstract
The relationship between online commenters and journalists has been challenged as frustrated journalists pull back on commenting and introduce rules to make it more difficult to participate. As new rules and policies emerge, journalists engage in a public campaign to change how commenting and journalism are perceived. This study seeks to understand how journalists attempt to frame commenting and its role alongside journalism. Boundary work was used to consider how journalists use public statements about commenting to establish appropriate roles for both the journalist and the commenter. But these statements also represent philosophies about strategies, policies, and practices related to commenting. Journalists take three philosophical approaches to online comments based on whether they willingly welcome commenters, see the commenter as a threat, but recognize their role, or take action to keep the audience at a distance. Along with these three roles, strategies and professional responses to commenting are also discussed.
Keywords
Journalism has a normative role to promote diverse voices and provide a space for public discourse (Christians et al., 2009; Hutchins Commission, 1947). But journalists often argue that audience content lacks quality and can be harmful to professional journalism (Reich, 2011; Robinson, 2010). Journalists have adopted attitudes that differentiate journalists who appreciate online commenters from those who delegitimize their content (Heinonen, 2011; Robinson, 2010). Those who support commenters are typically younger, work for an online organization, and are newer to professional journalism (Robinson, 2010). But beyond categories of journalists, what strategies are journalists using to distinguish content, delegitimize actors and practices, and build broader philosophies about audience content?
This study looks at 3 years of journalistic content about commenting and then observes the practices of journalists in one newsroom. The researcher used boundary work to understand where journalists are constructing boundaries between professional and amateur work and to see how journalists have distinguished their roles to create public demand for professional content by helping to instill a belief that amateur content is less worthy of publication. By considering how journalists discuss commenting and studying how they express professional strategies, this study provides a nuanced categorization of professionals based on their response to commenters. This study also builds on Robinson’s (2015) work on how commenters engage in practices that infringe on journalism by looking at how journalists respond to these actions. Finally, this study considers how journalists position the field in relationship to commenters, but then also how this professional position might align with, or differ from, how journalists at one organization act in the field. It contributes to our understanding of how journalists can influence organizational policies and practices, brings to light the impacts of reduced newsroom resources, and shows how one newsroom attempts to negotiate policies and practices to avoid problems with commenting.
The news organization in this study struggled to develop a newsroom policy for online commenting and recognized that development is an ongoing process of adapting to new realities. The journalists avoided interacting with their audience and developed simple routines and practices for moderation, including posting the rules at the top of the forum and silently deleting problematic comments or banning commenters. Journalists publicly stated an interest in promoting public discourse, but with one another spoke derisively of commenters and commenting. While commenting might be a popular interactive tool, journalists see it as one additional journalistic task and as a problem to be managed. The implications of journalists dismissing online comments as a trivial form of audience interaction are discussed in terms of how this could impact the choices journalists and news organizations make to further invest in participatory journalism.
Online audiences and their influence on journalism
Journalists have adapted to a professional role that focuses on production and dissemination, while allowing the audience to engage in an interpretative role through participatory journalism (Bruns, 2005). Online journalists are developing norms, policies, and practices, while also incorporating the audience into these practices (Boczkowski, 2004; Deuze, 2008). Media organizations have long relied on audience research to measure the size and scope of their audience (Shoemaker and Reese, 2014: 169), but journalists are increasingly influenced by online audience data (Boczkowski, 2010). Along with the growth of online publishing by the public, there has been a power shift in journalism (Heinonen, 2011) as the audience has become an active producer of content (Deuze, 2006).
To combat problematic commenting practices, some news organizations pre-approve all comments before publication, require commenters to use their real name or to register (Reich, 2011), or allow commenters to flag comments for review (Paulussen, 2011). Commenters tend to see their ability to contribute interpretation as a right (Reader, 2012) and use comments to share insight and opinions (Reagle, 2015). For this reason, they typically prefer to comment with a pseudonym and without prior review (Reader, 2012; Robinson, 2010). Journalists often try to limit commenter influence by editing comments or using wide latitude to remove comments that don’t fit journalistic standards (McElroy, 2013: 766–767). They frequently criticize comments as being low quality and for coming from unverified sources, but journalists approve of comments when the institution has rules in place to ensure quality and minimize organizational risk (Reich, 2011).
Professional and audience roles
As journalists have adapted to the audience’s influence, there has been a redefinition of the relationship between the audience and journalists (Heinonen, 2011). While news management looks for ways to improve audience participation, journalists break down into multiple camps based on whether they support participation or believe it infringes on their work (Wardle and Williams, 2010). Loke (2012) argues that journalists who support commenting see it as a way to benefit their journalism, and those who are concerned look for ways to filter audience participation. Nielsen (2012) found that journalists typically support commenting, but are more concerned about how comments might reflect on their work. Singer and Ashman (2009) argue that the professional norms of journalism, including autonomy and control, make it difficult for journalists to adapt to participatory content. Journalists often avoid interacting with readers, preferring that audience members have a conversation among themselves (Canter, 2013; Graham and Wright, 2015). This is partially due to organizational restrictions, suggesting that journalists might participate more with audience members if they had more time and resources (Canter, 2013: 615). Journalists often feel constricted by professional norms and treat audience participation as a ‘problem to manage rather than a benefit for the news product’ (Domingo, 2008: 698). However, journalists who read the comments say it causes them to reflect on their work and potentially makes them better journalists (Graham and Wright, 2015).
Heinonen (2011) defined three categories of how the relationship can be defined: journalists can develop a clear distinction between professional and user content, journalists can see user content as a collaborative effort, and journalists can struggle with defining the two groups’ roles – which often leads to a lack of a clear definition for either. The relationship can be categorized based on the stage of the news process: access and observation, selection and filtering, process and editing, distribution, and interpretation (Heinonen, 2011). Journalists allow commenters who witnessed an event to participate in the access stage as a potential source, but are often hesitant to allow the audience to assist with the selection and editing of content (Heinonen, 2011). They frequently allow the audience to assist with distribution, and to participate as an interpreter by providing feedback and commentary, and by helping to define the importance of the issue to the public (Heinonen, 2011).
Robinson (2010: 130) found a philosophical breakdown between ‘traditionalist’ journalists and ‘convergers’. The traditionalist believes journalists hold an authoritative role and have a responsibility to distinguish themselves from the audience, while the converger believes that journalists should give the audience more freedom for expression, production, and interpretation. Veteran journalists tend to accept the philosophy of the traditionalist while newer journalists, especially those who work online, tend to accept the values of the converger (Robinson, 2010). This project focuses on how US journalists engage in boundary work and establish preferred strategies for online commenting and then analyze these stated strategies to develop a new categorization of journalist responses. This builds on Robinson’s (2010) work to develop a more nuanced understanding of how journalists see commenting and its influence on journalism.
The preceding philosophies on the roles of journalists and commenters suggest continuing disagreement over the appropriate audience role that could depend upon certain journalist characteristics. This project will further explore journalist perceptions of commenters and their content, as well as strategies used for managing content, by focusing on both the public statements of journalists and their practices and behaviors. This study, however, only provides a glance into how commenters see their role, preferring to focus instead on those with the power to establish policies and practices.
Boundary work
Boundary work is the public act of ascribing characteristics to the institutions in a field for the purpose of distinguishing the field from similar actors, and to create a distinct demand for professionals, while excluding the practices of others (Gieryn, 1983). Boundary work is a sensitizing concept (Winch, 1997) for considering the differences between a specific field and other similar fields that are ‘deviant’ or ‘amateur’ (Gieryn, 1983). Boundary work is also ‘powerful social construction’ among many participants that can impact how resources are distributed and whether knowledge is legitimized (Carlson, 2016: 360). The researcher considers both the social construction of the boundaries through public statements by professionals and the material practices that members engage in (Lewis, 2015). The act of defining the boundaries of a field is most important when the boundaries are ‘threatened, expanded, constricted, and defined’ (Winch, 1997: 23). For journalism, boundary work can occur through metajournalistic discourse, as ‘various actors continually make and remake boundaries of acceptable practices through their interpretive labor’ (Carlson, 2016: 360).
Robinson (2015) looked at the practices of online commenters using boundary work and found three emerging trends: commenters negotiate the evidence of facts within the epistemology of journalism to take over the verification role, use narrative strategies to build stories and create meaning as part of imposing a value system, and engage in personal testimony to assert themselves as authoritative historians of events. However, commenters have little influence on the boundaries of the field because they lack a coherent and consistent message (Robinson, 2015). This study seeks to build on Robinson’s (2015) findings by studying commenter behaviors in relationship to journalist practices and policies as enacted in the newsroom by asking how journalists respond to these commenter practices.
Wahl-Jorgensen (2015: 174–176) argues that journalists often engage in forms of segregation and cooptation to keep online comments separate from professional content, but also to show that journalists want the voice of the audience to be included. By considering both the strategies journalists state about commenting, as well as the discourse and practices of professionals in one newsroom, this study can provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between what journalists state about commenting to the public and how they react within the newsroom.
Boundary work can be seen through three specific acts by professionals: the expansion of boundaries to incorporate new actors, practices, and subfield; the expulsion of deviant actors, practices, and values; and the protection of the field’s autonomy from outsiders, the ability to define correct practices, and attempts by the field to defend itself from outsiders (Carlson, 2015; Gieryn, 2001). For this study, the researcher studied journalist statements, the structure of discourse spaces, newsroom policies, journalist behaviors when interacting with commenters, and journalist discourse in the newsroom about commenters. Boundary work provides a framework for understanding how journalists perceive their professional role and their role in online news, but it also shows how journalists perceive their practices in response to an outside actor.
This study seeks to answer two broad research questions about professional journalists and online commenting: How do professional journalists use their work to publicly define the normative role of the commenter and how do professionals adopt policies and practices to enact journalist strategies about commenting?
Study design
The researcher focused on journalist discourse and actions – studying both the social acts of creating meaning through metajournalistic discourse and the material actions of journalists in enforcing and actualizing boundaries. This included a textual analysis of how news organizations explained the rules and practices of commenting followed by an ethnography of one newsroom and their commenting practices and policies.
For the textual analysis, the researcher collected articles from a Google News search of US media for the terms ‘online comments’ and ‘editor’ or ‘column’ and retrieved 77 articles, blog posts, and editor columns from 1 May 2012 to 1 May 2015. The study was focused on how journalists explain their personal philosophy and the decisions of their news organization, so this study, unlike many others focused on metajournalism, did not include studying trade press. This placed the researcher’s focus more on how specific journalists and news organizations approached the problem. The researcher used Google News to locate articles, posts, and columns because traditional news databases, like Lexis-Nexis, did not return as comprehensive of a set of articles as Google News did. The researcher settled on 3 years of data in order to make a statement about the status of journalism and commenting at this specific moment without going too far back in time, but also without sacrificing the quality of the research by having a small sample. After collecting the content, statements that reflected the sensitizing concepts were highlighted: statements about the positive or negative nature of online commenting, newsroom practices, and normative roles of journalists and online commenters.
The researcher conducted a textual analysis focused on how journalists use discourse to develop institutional identity and the appropriate role for professionals and other actors. The analysis was guided by sensitizing concepts about boundary work, including the participants, practices, and professionalism of the field (Carlson, 2015), as well as an initial interpretation of the data to develop 40 codes. The researcher re-engaged with the data, looking for similarities between the codes and built collections of codes around shared actions. This led to the development of 10 second-level codes that explicate more abstract understandings of how journalists approach online commenting. One final reading was done to develop themes about how journalists think of commenting, develop a role for commenters, and explicate their own role in news-mediated public discourse. The analysis was finalized by developing a series of patterns that tied the themes together. What emerged were three distinct journalist categories for how to respond to commenting and a distinct strategy for each category. Each of these categories of journalists employed a specific strategy for rationalizing their approach to commenting. The first phase included studying a diverse set of news organizations that have similar issues with commenting, but also unique challenges. Many different tools, including Facebook, Disqus, and livefyre, were used to facilitate comments, and some sites have built better online communities than others. While these factors might explain some of the findings about how journalists respond to commenting, the focus of this research was more on how journalists explain policies. The textual analysis informed the ethnography by providing sensitizing concepts to look for in the second phase, including journalist strategies and practices in response to commenting. The first phase also provided a roadmap for gaining a deeper understanding of the relationship between how journalists explained their beliefs about commenting and how they acted in response. Finally, the first phase provided a set of distinct journalist philosophies for understanding how journalists consider the role of commenting. These philosophies were defined and refined before the ethnography phase. The researcher developed specific questions to ask of each journalist interviewed in order to gauge how each individual fit into the philosophies as developed from the textual analysis.
For the ethnography, the researcher engaged in an immersive approach to understanding the practices, policies, and culture of the news organization related to commenting. The researcher attended news meetings, observed staff practices, conducted interviews, took notes on staff discourse, and examined newsroom policies. The analytical focus was placed at the intersection of technology, communication, and organization (Boczkowski, 2004) so as to consider how multiple elements contributed to the outcomes of the staff.
The site for the ethnography was chosen because the news organization had been engaging in a public battle over how to handle comments and had even experimented with turning off online comments for some content. The identity of the news organization has been kept confidential per an agreement with the news organization in exchange for access and will hereafter be referred to as The Daily Chronicle. 1 The Daily Chronicle is a large daily newspaper in the United States with a regional online presence. For the ethnography, the researcher spent 90 hours in the newsroom over the course of a month and collected 58 pages of single-spaced typed field notes. Sixteen face-to-face interviews with reporters and editors were also conducted (see Appendix 1).
All of the interviews were transcribed and analyzed along with the field notes. A discourse analysis of the notes was conducted using the sensitizing concepts of boundary work, including, broadly, the participants, practices, and professionalism of the field (Carlson, 2015). This includes looking at the statements and actions of participants within the field about online comments (as well as the statements and actions of those journalists interacted with), the practices of journalists in response to online commenters and commenter behaviors, and the actions journalists took to protect, defend, or expand the profession. These concepts were used to guide the researcher’s observation and interpretation of transcripts. The discourse of individuals within an organization can represent how identity is formed and transformed and, in a journalistic context, can show how journalists exchange meaning with ‘actors from other social institutions, with actors within journalism, and … with their own reflecting selves’ (Hanitzsch and Vos, 2017: 121) because discourse as a tool for justification involves both those inside a field and their interaction with those outside (Carlson, 2015). This discourse sheds light on how journalists might establish and reshape boundaries. The researcher developed codes in NVivo and looked for repeating themes and patterns and developed a set of themes that represented key issues in terms of journalist responses to new participants, practices, and professionalism.
Categories of journalists
The journalists’ approach to comments revolved around whether comments were a threat to the profession, whether comments should have to meet the same standard as a letter to the editor, and whether commenters can monitor and regulate their own content.
The combative guardian
The combative guardian saw user content as a threat to journalism and used professional norms to justify creating distance from the audience. An editor from The Kansas City Star argued that the same content would never appear in the newspaper (Donovan, 2013). Combative guardians typically worked for print publications and took action to re-define the commenter as an amateur. Through boundary work, this can either be seen as an expulsion of deviant actors and practices if commenting is restricted or as the protection of the field’s autonomy. The combative guardian justified restricting comments by stressing the poor quality of comments and how the professional deserved a higher status. They saw extreme differences between the principles of commenters and journalists and argued for commenters to be ostracized. They believed, generally, that commenters had no business creating content on a news site. Popular Science framed its argument to end commenting around the issue of accuracy. ‘Comments can change the perception readers have of not just the stories themselves, but the facts and figures covered in the stories that often shouldn’t be open to interpretation’ (Jackson, 2014). Journalists complained that ‘trolls’ had overrun discourse (Terhaar, 2013) and that participants abused the rules (Vore, 2015). ‘Trolls’ was one of the most common terms used by journalists to describe commenters. Beyond issues with problematic commenters, others stressed the cultural differences between journalism and other places for discourse. Nicholas Jackson from The Pacific Standard argued that comments are much more valuable in social media where the tenets of participation and engagement are inherent to the culture (Jackson, 2014). This strategy came closest to advocating for the expulsion of actors and practices from the profession.
The reluctant ally
The reluctant ally often came from a print journalism background like the combative guardian. This journalist saw the commenter as a threat, but also recognized a potential audience role. These journalists accepted commenting as a permanent fixture in journalism, but said it needed to be fixed. The reluctant ally believed that commenters should be watched closely, should not be provided with tools to manage content, and should be required to provide their name. A journalist from The Times Leader wrote about welcoming comments, but then used the editor’s blog to openly criticize commenters. ‘(Commenters) pop off about things they seemingly don’t understand, sometimes commenting on pieces they obviously have not read, or at least comprehended’ (The Times Leader, 2013). Alan Pergmanet (2015) of The Buffalo News said previous experiences made him cautious of comments, but that he tried to be open-minded and to ‘read them without changing my vision of what the column or blog should be’ reluctant ally would often expand the field slightly by structuring new practices that are open to some commenters. The reluctant ally saw it as his or her task to protect the autonomy of journalism and to define acceptable practices with the best interests of the profession in mind. The reluctant ally aspired to create a valuable community forum as a public service, but also was concerned about only promoting high-quality content and fell back on journalistic principles to defend changes to commenting. ‘We want to remain the virtual town square. … We believe these moves will raise the bar on those wanting to comment, because they’ll have to stand behind their comments rather than behind a shroud of anonymity’ (Losness, 2014). The Spokesman-Review restricted commenting to only local stories because moderating comments on national stories became too much work (Graham, 2014). This strategy accepted the presence of commenters, but took action to protect the autonomy of the profession from the worst actors and practices. These journalists blamed things like anonymity (Redecker, 2013) or irresponsible commenters, and sought to increase transparency and accountability from commenters (Soni, 2013), but also tried to make it more difficult for problem commenters to find a foothold on the site by moderating and engaging with participants (Redecker, 2013).
The willing collaborator
The willing collaborator saw the commenter as an interpreter of public events and welcomed them to the field. This journalist looked for ways to engage the audience and had faith in commenters to provide quality content. This included advocating for more tools for commenters to self-govern, trying to include more voices, and defending allowing commenters to use a pseudonym. Most of these journalists wrote for online-only organizations, and the researcher discovered, upon further investigation, that most were younger journalists with less professional newsroom experience. This was the only category of journalist who worked to expand the boundaries of the profession to incorporate new actors. These journalists looked for ways to empower audiences by providing more tools for commenters to police their own conversations. The willing collaborator showed respect for commenting and used normative statements about the importance of discourse and the organization’s public function. The lead moderators at The New York Times described comments as ‘an extension of our journalism … Our bet is that when you visit NYTimes.com, you’re looking for urbane and literate content, and our comments sections seek to live by that same standard’ (Sullivan, 2012). The Times uses a system of ‘verified’ commenters who must meet high standards for quality and join an elite group who are allowed to publish without pre-moderation (Sullivan, 2014). This strategy represents expanding the profession to welcome commenters, but to still take action to define acceptable practices. The willing collaborator argued for alternative moderation tools, including ranking commenters, vetting commenter credibility (Rolston, 2012), and increasing resources and moderation by humans (Sullivan, 2012). The focus of moderators was less on preventing bad content and more on encouraging participation. This philosophy was evident in an article by Steve Cooper of Forbes, who welcomed anonymity in commenting, rather than seeing it as a detriment. ‘Too many times people refrain from speaking their mind (or even the truth) because they fear the repercussions or judgment. Maintaining anonymity is often the first step in broaching tough topics’ (Cooper, 2013).
Equating journalism and commenter standards
These categories align with the findings of Robinson (2010) in that the combative guardian is similar to the ‘traditionalist’ journalist, who eschews audience interaction, while the willing collaborator represents the ‘converger’ journalist, who welcomes audience participation. The reluctant ally represents a pragmatic response positioned in between and also exposes the gap between the ‘real’ and the ‘ideal’ by showing how journalists set normative expectations related to discourse, but also how they respond to real problems in the newsroom. The reluctant ally recognizes the need for ideal norms that define professional expectations, but is also aware of the realities of the newsroom and tries to negotiate this dissonance. Most journalists rejected extreme responses and aligned with the reluctant ally, suggesting the need to accept more complexity in categorizing journalist responses to the audience and commenters.
These journalists accomplished boundary work by establishing similar standards for commenters and professionals and then by showing that commenters do not meet these standards. By distinguishing commenters based on quality, journalists made it more difficult for commenters to maintain a right to publish. This allowed journalists to monopolize the field and claim that professionals have the only legitimate claim to produce news, similar to Gieryn’s (1983) argument that professionals will delegitimize the practices of amateurs. By maintaining control and establishing rules, journalists are able to both distance themselves from amateurs and assert their professional role (Williams et al., 2011). The journalists labeled commenters as ‘trolls’ if they engaged in name-calling, made outrageous arguments, and/or made false claims without supporting evidence. This represents journalists engaging in the expulsion of practices and individuals from the field (Carlson, 2015) by using the ‘attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions’ of the profession to re-construct the boundaries as necessary (Winch, 1997: 17). Those journalists who tried to expand the field to welcome commenters fit with Bruns’ (2005) description of journalists attempting to incorporate new practices and participants to the field through expansion (Carlson, 2015). Professional journalists from a traditional media background, however, saw themselves as protectors of the profession (Carlson, 2015) and sought to instill norms like civility, rationality, and quality. This fits with previous research considering the norms of journalists and commenters about how the space should be used (Reader, 2012; Reich, 2011; Robinson, 2010).
Creating distance between the professional and the commenter
In 2015, The Daily Chronicle, a large daily newspaper in the Midwest, was struggling to find an approach to online comments that did not allow commenters to misuse the site, but that also did not overwhelm online staff with the task of reviewing all user content. The organization had gone through multiple iterations of commenting policies over a 5-year period and was testing out a short-term program where comments were turned off on all op-ed content in order to reduce the workload, but also to stop problematic comments on some of the most controversial articles. The researcher came into the newsroom during this time of change to explore how journalists perceived commenting through their newsroom discourse, their statements to the researcher, and their actions online. What developed was an image of a newsroom where journalists accepted a diminished role for the audience member, but dismissed their practices as outside the bounds of professional journalism, and therefore journalists took action to distance professional work from amateur content. This represented the philosophy of the reluctant ally: accepting commenting as important for discourse, but frustrated with the quality in practice.
Journalist philosophies toward commenting – i.e. the combative guardian, reluctant ally and the willing collaborator – are individual attributes of the journalist, rather than existing as attributes of the organization or institutions, and most journalists at The Daily Chronicle held the philosophy of the reluctant ally. The organization had spent 5 years developing a commenting policy that would allow commenters some freedom while maintaining the organization’s authority. First, the organization accepted anonymous comments (DW, 2011) and then shifted toward Facebook commenting in 2012 to hold commenters accountable (Bill, 2012). The audience engagement editor, Bridget, started in 2014 and raised the issue of creating a comment moderation policy. ‘There was nothing really saying to commenters here is what we want to see from our comments… so I said what if we told people what we want? We’ve never made that really clear’ (Bridget, 2015, personal communication). She helped write the policy and published it online as a blog post in May 2015. This slow development of policy aligns with how the reluctant ally will negotiate the public service function of the journalist with the commenter’s limited role in discourse.
Bridget consistently re-posted the rules in the comments to reinforce the policy change. But by entering the forum, she also brought herself into the discussion and spent more time removing critical comments and responding to criticisms about the policy. She targeted stories that she believed would lead to worse comments. ‘Crime stories very rarely get good comments and the type of debate about what would improve crime. Even on stories that are about what the city is trying to do to improve crime, people still don’t discuss those issues’ (Bridget, 2015, personal communication). As reluctant allies, many journalists saw the commenting policy as difficult to enforce and seemed discouraged, but still showed hope that a solution existed. To meet this role, it became a common strategy to try and snuff out problem comments as quickly as possible to limit commenter influence while still providing a space for discourse. In order to stop problems from exacerbating, Bridget would frequently remove the bad content and then copy and paste the same post outlining the forum rules into the conversation. Commenters often mocked this statement or tried to bait her into a discussion of the rules, but she rarely replied.
Most journalists did not express specific strategies or tactics to fix comments, however. One journalist, in response to his perception of rampant incivility, said he thought the organization was doing the best they could. ‘I don’t see another way of doing (moderation). I guess we thought Facebook would help a little bit because people would be more hesitant to be so vile with their identities out there, but that doesn’t stop everyone’ (Jackson, 2015, personal communication). This resigned approach to moderation exemplifies the position of the reluctant ally – that extreme policy responses to commenting rarely offer practical and effective solutions to the problem, and instead journalists should focus on finding a middle ground approach. However, this middle ground is vast and encompasses various proposed solutions to commenting with very little agreement. The news organization had tried ending anonymity, strategically targeting moderation resources, ending comments on certain types of stories, and using Facebook commenting to make comments more public, but none of these tactics seemed to be satisfactory.
Establishing quality commenter behavior
The journalists preferred comments that had context, insight and personal experience. ‘It does not have to just affirm what the story says. A good comment, I think, spurs further comment and it also spurs further thought on the topic of the story’ (Jonathon, 2015, personal communication). Dan (2015, personal communication), a photographer, said he thought good comments should ‘add to the conversation, add a depth and richness to it’. Lisa (2015, personal communication), a reporter, said she thought commenting should ideally be a place where people ‘listen to one another and actually have a respectful conversation’,. The editor-in-chief said he thought journalists should be open to engagement with commenters to help facilitate quality rather than just posting content and hoping commenters use it for good (George, 2015, personal communication). The reluctant ally sees it as their duty to limit commenter involvement while seeming open to the idea of an expansive public sphere. This means finding justifications for why certain behaviors must be banned, which includes defining statements as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ comments.
Most journalists at The Daily Chronicle trivialized commenting when asked about its role in the organization and expressed frustration with commenters to one another. The newsroom administrator referred to the forums as a ‘cesspool of trolls expelling hate back and forth’ (Matt, 2015, personal communication). Many journalists referenced specific commenters they knew by name and mocked them in newsroom conversations. Most staff members admitted reading comments, but with little hope to see productive conversation. During a few staff meetings, an editor would ask Michelle, the online news editor, or Bridget about the comments on a specific story not because they were genuinely curious, but because they believed that story would provoke a humorous conversation. When journalists at The Daily Chronicle expressed their ideal expectations, they established a very high standard for discourse and structured policy around this ideal in order to set apart the commenter. They saw forums as a place for ‘interesting conversations with other people’ about news ‘in our community’ (Janet, 2015, personal communication) or as a place for individuals to ‘challenge people’s viewpoints’ (Jackson, 2015, personal communication). In Bridget’s column announcing the new commenting policy, she openly espoused the philosophy of the reluctant ally by referencing the poor quality of the forum while discussing opportunities to improve. She talked about how commenting was a way for readers to ‘share important information about a news story’ and ‘to see others’ reactions to news, others’ opinions, and others’ jokes’ (Bridget, 2015). But Matt, the newsroom administrator, admitted that one reason why journalists are cautious to set high expectations of commenters is because journalists often feel threatened by audience content. ‘Journalists are becoming afraid of, and aware of the fact that they’re not the only people in town that have a soapbox now… they feel that any other voice diminishes their own voice’ (Matt, 2015, personal communication).
Maintaining journalistic authority over the forum
Journalists spoke out about online commenting as a tool that is often misused and needs professional oversight. Journalists attempted to protect the field, similar to what was described by Carlson (2015), by establishing certain practices and behaviors as outside the boundaries of the field and then attempted to enforce those expectations. By restricting practices rather than participants, the journalists seemed to establish a welcoming environment, but in practice, it was more exclusionary.
Along with accepting the task of moderating comments, journalists recognized this took a lot of resources. One editor said the websites that do the best comment moderation have more resources and use them intelligently. ‘I love reading comments on sites that moderate well, like The New York Times. For one, they don’t do comments on every story, which I think is really smart’ (Janet, 2015, personal communication). Some supported pre-moderating all comments, but many others said there was no effective way to moderate so many comments. ‘In an ideal world the person could moderate first, but it’s such an avalanche of comments and we are so scarce for resources’ (Dan, 2015, personal communication). A few staffers supported having commenters help moderate, but many others said the program would probably be abused. Journalists, instead, worked to keep the comments to a manageable level – where the worst commenters are banned and the rest of the content is culled piece by piece. The two staff members tasked with doing the majority of moderation – Michelle and Bridget – had other daily responsibilities including writing content, publishing content online, monitoring analytics, attending meetings, following active stories, and assigning reporters and photographers. Both frequently criticized the lack of resources devoted to managing user content.
Professionals defending the field
Journalists fiercely defended their autonomy from commenter influence and acted to exclude commenters from journalistic practices. Wahl-Jorgensen (2015) referred to journalists as engaging in segregation and cooptation with comments, in that journalists would both invite participation from the public, but then take action to keep professional content separate from the audience contributions. A similar form of segregation and cooptation occurred at The Daily Chronicle in the form of placing commentary on a separate webpage from the news story. Audience content was provided without context, but as a separate forum. However, journalists welcomed audience contributions in public statements about comments. This helped reinforce the authority of the journalist in the space, but only within the confines of the professional role.
Conclusion
The reluctant ally represents a journalist who rejects the extreme responses of many journalists for a more pragmatic response to online commenting and its potential role in professional journalism. This focuses attention, in terms of the professional-audience relationship, on these pragmatic journalists who help enact policies and establish the accepted uses for forums.
The reluctant ally might be a journalist who is more willing than others to engage with the online audience, but they still take action to limit the influence of the commenter. This requires more consideration of their specific choices and actions to understand how they negotiate a shared existence with the commenter, while preserving the organization’s professional role and reputation. When journalists, generally, dismiss the role of the commenter they not only take on the philosophy of creating distance between the professional and the commenter, they also help to institutionalize this perception through journalist and news organization choices about how to moderate content and institute policies. These choices could further impact the relationship between journalists and their audience.
This study shows journalists openly dismissing the role of the commenter and taking action to limit their influence on professional work. In light of this, journalists could make a few changes including focusing more on acceptable commenter behavior, rather than content expectations, and protecting organizational resources and concentrating on rewarding quality.
Many of the concerns of journalists at The Daily Chronicle came back to how to establish and enforce commenter expectations, but journalists could focus on facilitating quality social behavior. Journalists should adopt commenting policies with concrete rules about social conduct, like requiring respectful and civil discourse, and then enforce these rules by considering how individuals engage with one another. Journalists also frequently complained that managing comments was a drain on resources. News organizations could focus on reducing the number of stories with comments and rewarding quality, rather than punishing bad participants. The Spokesman-Review, one of the news organizations studied in the textual analysis, cut back on comments on national stories and put more resources into allowing comments on local stories. This focuses attention on where the news organization can best serve its public.
While this project sheds light on how some journalists perceive the commenter, it only considers the relationship between the traditional print newsroom and its online audience. The deeply embedded news routines of newspapers could influence how these types of newsrooms respond to a new outside actor. The first phase of the project relied upon a textual analysis of journalistic texts, but these texts lacked the ability to show the motivations of journalists and news organizations. A textual analysis, however, does provide a broad understanding of the approach of the professional field, so that the researcher could understand what the field, generally, was doing to respond. Future research should consider more specific responses by news organizations and look outside of traditional print newsrooms. Future research should also consider the perspectives of the commenter in greater depth, including by doing interviews, surveys and more incisive study of their texts. There is much to learn about the motivations of commenters, the broader community goals, and the relationship to the news organization.
This research has provided new insight on how one news organization has adapted policies and procedures to handle online commenting and how journalists have developed philosophies about commenting in response. It has shown how individual perspectives influence broader perspectives about the role of commenting, how moderation is undertaken, and whether the news organization should take steps to limit the commenter’s influence. The news organization, as well as the broader field, is struggling with how to allow for audience autonomy while still holding on to power and journalistic authority. This struggle, along with other pressing economic influences and industry-wide pressures, helps to elucidate the stress placed on journalists to produce quality and engaging journalism with fewer resources and under increasing pressure to perform. The next iteration of sociological research in this area should consider whether these pressures, and the influences of the audience, are pushing journalism to produce even better content using existing standards of quality or whether the industry will be forced to transform the very fabric and character of professional journalism.
Footnotes
Appendix 1
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
