From the Editor's Desk

Our print readers received an interesting looking newspaper this morning — or will receive one sometime today — due to some production problems overnight that delayed printing.

I’ll have a column in the Friday edition explaining as much as is understandable about what happened, but essentially a number of backend computer files required to put the paper out became corrupted sometime Wednesday, and the fix took hours. The shortened schedule for printing forced us to do the unexpected — print an all black-and-white edition to save time in producing the plates that run on the press for color pages. The press normally starts at 12:15 a.m. daily; this morning’s run began around 7 a.m., meaning that as I write this we still have papers being dropped off. Between the late delivery and black and white cover, some readers may feel a hint of nostalgia for the old afternoon edition that didn’t have color either.

Jokes aside, I want to apologize for readers for the delay. Also, the effort of more than 12 Sun employees in pre-press, the press room, IT, and the mailroom is worth noting. Those dozen people, not including carriers who were sent home around 2 a.m. and asked to return at dawn, spent all night diagnosing the problem and working with an outside company’s tech support to get things fixed. It’s a cliché that the newspaper is a “daily miracle,” but nights like last night give you an idea of the effort and a little magic behind getting this thing to 20,000 doorsteps day after day.

Like I said, I’ll try to have more information later, both here and for print readers. If you’re still waiting for your paper, please have patience. But also understand things are a little scrambled with delivery schedules, so do call us later today (360.377.3711) if you haven’t received your paper.

And be looking for a full-color Sun on Friday.

Share on Facebook

I can’t think of a better compliment to lead this post with than what Facebook reader Heather Cooper wrote on our page Friday: “Larry Steagall is boss.”

Indeed, Heather.

Most readers already knew this from looking at the photographer’s work over the past two decades. Larry’s often honored with awards for his shots — he and Meegan M. Reid dominated the National Press Photographer’s Association monthly contests this year — but he’s also a little shy and fairly humble about it.

The Thursday before Christmas we had a little Christmas potluck in the newsroom, and used the event as a ruse to get the notoriously shy photographer some attention. Larry had been awarded the best photo of 2011 by the International Association of Fire Fighters, for a shot from a 2010 fire in Manette (in my neighborhood, no less, which means I actually watched him work that night). And naturally, the guys down at Bremerton Fire knew he wouldn’t show up if they scheduled some kind of ceremony.

Late-night fires are Larry’s specialty (the guy sleeps next to a scanner), and the Sun’s coverage of fires is unrivaled by any news agency that doesn’t have a helicopter, as far as I’m concerned. So we found a way to celebrate the fact that one of his photos from that night is now on the cover of a 2012 IAFF calendar, and the $500 check that comes with the honor. Surprise!

Best of all, Larry finally had to accept an award in front of his peers and get cheered. And here I am letting you in on it, so everyone knows.

Below is a video that reporter Amy Phan took during our little presentation. Larry even cuts the bashful act a bit. Congrats Larry!

Share on Facebook

The weekly newspapers in Kitsap County owned by Sound Publishing will soon require readers to log-in with a Facebook account if they’d like to comment on a story.

I wasn’t planning to write anything about the change, because it’s one of many experiments being tried in the industry and not something we’re pursuing. I’ve written about other attempts to change commenting before, and stated my feeling that tech solutions alone aren’t the answer to the downside of online commentary on news sites. I disagree that eliminating anonymous comments will alone somehow “mature” the discussion on newspaper websites, and, despite the occasional heartburn we experience here in monitoring comment threads, I believe there is good reason to allow pseudonyms in online forums and we’ve committed to that. It’s also not my cup of tea to hand a website’s registration process over to Facebook, or to force my readers to sign up for a site they may have no interest in.

That said, after seeing our newspaper’s “credibility” called into question (yes, it’s our newspaper Lary Coppola is talking about if you scroll down on the comments), I felt like responding by sharing a quick story.

A few weeks ago I wrote two emails to readers who use pseudonyms to comment on our site. They had, I felt, commandeered a comment thread by pointing in a direction I thought was off-topic from the story itself. Their part of the discussion took on a fairly weighty and serious topic in the context of a lighter feature story, which seemed inappropriate. I asked that they keep the heavier and controversial discussion to stories with a more direct relation to their argument. (Sorry, but I’m keeping it general out of respect to these readers. Some of you may still figure out who these guys are, but that’s beside my point here.)

One called me back the next morning and we talked about it, the other guy actually showed up in the office. They both get bashed from time to time on the threads because of some divergent viewpoints, but both were pleasant and reasonable and I really enjoyed both conversations.

I don’t often hear outpourings of thanks like the one that came from one of these guys. Kitsapsun.com discussion forums are incredibly important to him, and the anonymity is key. Because of his contrarian viewpoints on certain topics, this man doesn’t want to use his name. He’s not advocating hate, lying about who he is or bashing others simply to bash; he’s expressing a view that could harm his business or ostracize him from his in-laws or long-time friends. He uses our forums as an outlet, hoping to engage others in a discussion that is near to his core beliefs, or perhaps to see that others in our community think like he does. That utopian idea of enlightened back-and-forth doesn’t always happen, of course (just as it doesn’t always happen in real life), and some threads have a tendency to devolve and allow one or two critics to harp on this guy. But he remained optimistic about the free, open forum that has coalesced into a community on kitsapsun.com, and his optimism is something I tend to share.

I think the anonymity offered on our comment boards gives critics of it a faulty perch on which they assume the worst of people: that is, the argument those who won’t use their “real name” are jaded cretins wallowing in hate and aggression. There’s probably some like that, sure, and there’s others who won’t engage cooperatively or listen to reason. The two men I spoke with have experienced the short end of that stick again and again. They’ve learned, like I have all the times the Sun gets beat up on those forums, that in the online world you need both thick skin and a decent sense of humor.

So I’ll stand by the practice of allowing pseudonyms as part of the community that’s developed on our site. That sort of “free speech” doesn’t mean we allow all speech, as we’ve repeated many times when pointing users toward our comment guidelines. But I’ll take the responsibility that comes with hosting an open forum, where contrarian views can be held and all opinions can be offered, because I believe that’s part of how we communicate online. Pseudonyms let readers remain anonymous, but they also allow commentors to build credibility through being consistent in opinions or reasonable in debates. And I think most of us are smart enough to sort out which of those we trust.

One last point, to briefly clear up another fallacy that was raised on that Port Orchard Independent piece I linked to above. We don’t keep anonymous comments because it somehow benefits us monetarily. (In fact, as far as staff time on moderation is concerned, we offer them at a loss.)

It’s true that part of online advertising is based on page views, but looking at our statistics does not bear out that the majority of our page views come from stories with high comment traffic. We get more traffic from obituaries than most stories with multiple comments. Even on opinion pieces that draw more than 100 comments over a period of days, those rarely compete with our most viewed stories of the day, and they tend to draw the same small group of repeat readers rather than a broad range of unique visitors, which advertisers may also find more attractive. There’s no moral choice of sacrificing ethics in a chase for page views.

My guess is there will be some discussion beneath this post, so I’ll try to answer any more questions there. Thanks for reading.

—David

Share on Facebook

Last Saturday we produced a special “saturation” newspaper, so those of you non-print subscribers in Port Orchard, Bremerton, Silverdale and Poulsbo may have received a free Sun on your doorstep. The idea was to introduce, or re-introduce, the Kitsap Sun to folks we may have lost touch with. Remind ‘em newspapers are still alive, and maybe sign a few people up for subscriptions*.

Part of the strategy was a marketing piece that featured photos and short descriptions of most of the reporters and photographers in the newsroom. It was nicely done and hopefully introduced our staff to potential readers, but the idea to spotlight a newspaper’s headliners or personalities really isn’t “new” (though it had been awhile since the Sun’s run that kind of “get to know us” effort).

What is kind of new is the little project on Tumblr I noticed yesterday, which is generating some buzz in journalism circles (at least circles on Twitter), called We Are Journalists. It’s along the same lines as our campaign to personalize reporters, in a way I haven’t seen before. From what I understand it’s patterned on the “We are the 99 percent” slogan going on with the Occupy movement, as a way of collectively standing up to ask for a little respect for the work reporters do in the face of some increasingly tough odds. So journalists write a short bio and post a photo of themselves, and the world can see that we are real people, who, for one reason or another, love and care about the work we do.

The submissions seem mainly to come from young reporters so far, but we’ve all been there so it’s interesting to read in a sentimental way. Some of the war stories or stereotypes sound a little schmaltzy or cliche, but deep down I like those in the way most people are suckers for romantic comedies. And then there’s the inside jokes that only journalists can come up with, and probably that don’t make anyone else laugh. Like: “I feel like I’m sinning if I don’t read at least 3/4 of the newspaper, and I often find myself reading yesterday’s news to cure my guilt.”

I loved that one.

Here’s mine (which should probably be edited if I’m really going to submit it):

I go home every day having learned something new. My friends ask me what’s going on around town because they know I’ll know. When I meet people, we’re able to find some connection because the newspaper’s reported on them, their neighborhood, their job or something they’ve been involved with. I’m neither a Democrat or a Republican, and won’t ever be because I’m a journalist instead. I get to cringe when certain area codes are on my caller ID since I know I’m about to be unfairly criticized because we did our job in making someone uncomfortable with a status quo belief (and then everyone in the newsroom gets to roll their eyes about it together, which is fun).

I like when a reader, who is insignificant in the reams of customer statistics that drive business decisions in the world today, takes the time to say thanks for a photo or puzzle or book review or publishing the score from her granddaughter’s volleyball game, reminding me that the Sun makes a difference in someone’s life every day.

Yesterday I was at the Manette Bridge opening, tweeting and sending photos back to the newsroom and saying hi to my neighbors, and a few people asked how I got out of work on a sunny day to hang around at the bridge. It was my work.

I am the editor of a local newspaper.

*It kind-of worked.

Share on Facebook

We published a small item last week about a 78-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s Disease who went missing in Kingston and was found the next day. One of the comments on that story asked why we had not reported the disappearance of a young man named Miguel Scott, and one of Scott’s friends asked essentially the same question on our Facebook page.

So I’ll try to shed a little light on our thinking here.

It’s not a easy question to answer because, understandably, Scott’s friends and family are very worried for his safety, as family members and friends usually are when an adult disappears without word. A similar incident occured earlier this year when four young adults from Bainbridge Island left without letting their parents know, which we did not report on either because no formal search was organized.

When adults go missing we typically defer to the judgment of police, who commonly handle missing persons cases, to determine whether a person is in danger (such as in the 78-year-old’s case or in 2010′s disappearance of Kara Radabah, who left home without medication to treat her schizophrenia) or if the public’s involvement is necessary (such as in an Amber Alert, or Joe Pichler’s disappearance) before we get involved.

This can sound callous to someone looking for a friend or family member, but adults sometimes leave without wanting to be found. Sometimes teens run away and return quickly, or stay somewhere that may be safer than their home. To publicize every adult who makes that decision just because someone involved asks us to do so can overstep our bounds of privacy, or it can overplay a domestic situation that may not be the public’s business. Too many stories in the newspaper about runaways, I hate to say, could potentially desensitize the community to them as well.

That said, there are always exceptions and we make up our minds as more information becomes available. We do listen to family members who ask for our help in locating someone, and we keep in mind that police may not take every case as seriously as the family does.

Josh Farley has checked with the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office again this week about Miguel Scott, and though Scott is not subject to any “official” search, on Wednesday it will be two weeks since he’s been missing. Fliers are now posted around Bremerton, which no doubt some readers will have seen. Since our utmost duty is to inform our readers, who have seen those signs and maybe wondering what they’re about or how serious this case is, we will likely do that soon.

When to publish a story about a missing person is a tricky question we grapple with. Like many judgments in the newsroom, there’s no hard and fast rule or policy, and we do our best to make the right call when looking at each case independently. Like I mention above, the utmost responsibility is to our readers, and that’s something always kept in mind.

—David Nelson

Share on Facebook

Ryan Malone called our newsroom Monday in a rush, unwilling to leave his phone number for a return call. He called me repeatedly during the morning Tuesday, later apologizing for being a “stalker.” And at noon today he sat next to me in the Sun’s lobby, his voice quivering a bit as we spoke.

Nervous whistleblower? Paranoid source?

Nope. Just a Navy man with a creative streak and a big question on his mind.

Ryan is 25 and an Alabama native who arrived in Kitsap County a little more than five years ago, when he was stationed on the USS Louisiana. He did four tours on the sub, and he’s an E5 missile technician now working for SWFPAC out at Bangor.

So he’s probably got nerves of steel. But his plan this week, which I jumped on board with the past few days, had him in a frenzy. The idea was to pop the question this afternoon to his girlfriend of 18 months, Emily. And he chose the newspaper as his gimmick.

His first call Monday was a little vague. Ryan had seen someone else use a classified ad spot to propose, and he wanted to top that. I don’t know if his initial suggestion was serious or not — put the proposal in the lead story spot on A1 for our 20,000 or so readers to see — but we needed to figure a way around that impossibility. I said I’d think about it, and he promised to call back Tuesday. He didn’t want me calling; if she saw a message or missed call, Emily would be sure to ask why the Kitsap Sun needed to talk to him.

It’s impossible to print just one edition of the newspaper, so redesigning the cover to deliver a full extra edition to his doorstep was unrealistic. But our production team of Chuck Sanders and Maureen Ballard said they could manipulate a single newsprint sheet of the front page that Ryan would be able to attach to today’s edition. Chuck used a photo of Ryan and Emily on top of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas, added a new headline in place of where today’s lead story was (“Emily, will you marry me?”), and we had a special cover that Ryan could wrap around today’s actual newspaper.

Chuck Sanders tweaks the new front page.

The "real" Sun at left, and the special engagement edition.

Ryan and his surprise.

Ryan’s mother is in town visiting from Alabama, hence the need to get this mission accomplished right away. He snuck away by telling Emily he needed to get a haircut, and came down to the office to pick up the surprise.

The plan was to have his mother and Emily’s mother over to his home Wednesday afternoon, and when Emily was in the room one of them would set down the newspaper she’s reading, commenting on all the interesting stuff on the front page. And then Emily would pick it up, and…

…say yes. Which she did.

Ryan emailed me a few minutes ago with the end of the story. He used several exclamation points.

Congrats Ryan and Emily. We may never top that front page for you, but I hope you still find something interesting in the Sun.

Share on Facebook

Our editorial board met Tuesday with proponents and the opposition to Kitsap County Proposition 1, the ballot question for county voters on a levy to fund programs to help veterans in need and other homeless people in the county.

Videos from each interview are here and here, part of the ongoing series of editorial board interviews online for voters and readers to see the candidates, or in this case spokesmen for either side of an issue. Leif Bentsen, a veterans advocate and human services planner for Kitsap County, and Maj. Jim Baker of the Salvation Army spoke on behalf of the measure. Jack Hamilton, head of the local Republican party but acting on his own as the author of the “no” position in the voters guide, spoke in opposition. The meetings were done separately, as you’ll see from the videos.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hamilton’s remarks were cut just a few minutes short on the video. I want to share my notes on a few of the final statements he made to us for the record, in fairness to him and anyone following these videos.

In conclusion, Mr. Hamilton made or reiterated essentially two points:
1. He answered a closing question about other options for providing homeless services by saying that people in the county would be willing to make charitable contributions to cover the needs cited by the levy proponents, if that cost was made known widely to the public through a nonprofit agency. Hamilton said that Kitsap residents really haven’t been asked to help specifically reach a set goal that could go toward homeless or vets programs, and using a taxing authority to ask that question of the community is inappropriate.
2. Hamilton concluded by saying that how levy revenues will be spent is not adequately outlined in the proposal. “If we need it, make the need absolutely, positively clear,” Hamilton said. He called the attitude one of “pass the proposal, then we’ll spend the money,” and again asked for an “explicit, specific use for that money.”

Also, below I’ve posted links to three documents that are referenced in our discussions, provided for background if you’re watching. The first is the resolution passed by the commissioners that authorizes the ballot measure. The second is a selection of pages from a 29-page KitsapCares document of background on they levy that Bentsen and Baker gave to our board and referenced during the presentation; I’ve scanned the relevant pages that were mentioned. The third is a data sheet that Jack Hamilton distributed to our board during that part of the interview, which is also referenced in that video.

Kitsap County Veterans and Human Services Levy

Fact sheet (partial) from proponents of Kitsap County Proposition 2, veterans and homeless services levy

Data sheet from opposition to Kitsap County Proposition 1, veterans and homeless services levy

Share on Facebook

After reading Chris Henry’s story and watching Amy Phan’s video about dirty jobs for our new series on work in or community, I got to thinking about my dirtiest job.

I grew up in the Skagit Valley, and upgraded from my first real job, picking strawberries (which is pretty dirty itself, with all that kneeling in the mud), to the dirtiest job I ever had: rouging spinach.

After a few years in the berry fields spinach was a plum to a 14-year-old because it paid a little more than $3 an hour. That was where the perks ended. (Though in retrospect for that amount of money, there may not have been any perks save for some Mama Nelson-approved character building).

“Rouging” spinach means you walk down a row in a spinach field that is maybe a quarter of a mile long, bent at the waist the whole time, looking for male spinach plants. When you find a male (they have small yellow seeds on top) you pull the plant, snap it in half, and throw it over your shoulder. Then you bend over and start looking again.

To get to the field you met the clunky used school bus outside the Alf Christensen Seed Co. warehouse at 7 a.m., dressed in your rain gear, and sat on a dirt-caked seat with your lunchbox in hand until you arrived at the field. Each of the 30 or 40 kids on the crew lined up behind a row. When the supervisor, usually the crankiest of school bus drivers enjoying her summer off, started yelling, you started pawing through spinach plants and waited for the tongue-lashing to come your way for missing a specimen of the male variety.

What made the job so dirty is that during early June, as we all know, summer mornings are neither dry nor terribly warm. So not only were we mucking through a field yanking spinach roots, we were usually doing it in the rain. And wet spinach reeks.

So my brother and I would get home in the afternoon and my mother wouldn’t even let us in the garage. We’d stand in the driveway and get the first blast from the hose to wash down the raingear, then strip down piece by piece, the hose aimed our way the whole time. Eventually we’d be nearly naked, clean, and without the spinach smell, though I remember closing my eyes for bed and still seeing the little yellow spinach seeds, just hanging on my eyelids and taunting that another day was coming.

Eventually I landed a summer job that wasn’t in the fields. I worked for the Mount Vernon School District, on what was called the summer crew. Our job was to go around and help the custodians deep-clean the school buildings. (This also was among the Top Five dirty jobs in my professional life.)

I scrubbed toilets, chiseled gum off desks, mopped and waxed floors, and shampooed carpets (a much dirtier job than it sounds; industrial carpet shampooers stiiiink). Eventually I talked myself into a job in the district’s warehouse, where I delivered supplies, inventoried the district’s shipping, delivered the medium-ticket items, and helped teachers move in and out of classrooms. Carrying books was much better than carrying a scum bucket.

My third year at the warehouse I convinced my boss to bring on a second helper from the summer crew. My friend Tim then rode co-pilot as we drove around picking up desks, moving refrigerators, and, once, demolishing a surplused piano that wouldn’t fit out the music room’s door.

Tim and I would arrive on the loading dock every morning at 6. By this time Alf Christensen had centralized the loading of spinach crew buses, and they happened to wait across the parking lot from our warehouse. So after the first 45 mintues of work (making coffee, checking the work order list, and reading the newspaper), Tim and I would wander back out on the dock, wave at those poor souls headed out to the fields for a morning among the wet greens and indulge in a little schnadenfreud:  “Have fun at spinach today guys!”

You want to talk about dirty? Imagine the looks we got.

Share on Facebook

I know, I know, in America these days it’s always campaign time. But we like to draw a line when a voter can realistically start following local elections.

From my perspective, that starts when our editorial board starts meeting with candidates for the primary and general elections. With few primary races this summer we met only four times with candidates (two Bainbridge council races, one Bremerton council, one North Kitsap school board).  But the editorial board will have its work cut out over the next two months as we prepare for the general election in November.

Once again we’ll endorse the candidates that earn a consensus approval from the editorial board, though those opinions will not be published until later in October. We’ll also once again be uploading video of our interviews to kitsapsun.com, to give voters an additional resource to access candidates and lend more transparency to our board’s decisions. You may have notice the first few video interviews are now live on the site. Keep watching each week for more, they’ll usually post on Thursday or Friday.

The discussion with Port Orchard City Council candidates Jerry Childs and Ben Pinneo was abbreviated because our tape ran out before closing comments were made. If you’ve watched that video through to the end you’ll see a note there referring to this blog.

I wanted to give a shorthand version of the remainder of that meeting so it’s on the record, and because each candidate had a few points worth sharing.

Pinneo continued after the tape’s conclusion, stating his opinion that city communications could improve, and his vision to do so more proactively through social networking. That was a transition into the recent code city issue, which Pinneo, who was local at the most recent council meeting on the topic, said could have been better explained to residents. He told us he had no negative suspicions about the plan, but he signed the Michaels’ petition because he had heard no “specific examples” of how a code city designation will benefit Port Orchard. Pinneo concluded by stating that he’s a man of “moderate views,” and simiply interested in being a public servant through a council role.

Jerry Childs used his response to talk about the leadership role he and his wife, Shannon Childs, played in founding the Cedar Cove Days festival from 2009, which emphasizes his philosophy that such events help a community “reinvent itself,” a benefit in both tourism dollars and local pride. He mentioned some additions to this winter’s Lights and Chimes that he’s helped with, for instance. “Things that people have fun doing, that helps improve the image of their town.”

Childs also responded to Pinneo’s statement about the code city debate. He said the issue was vetted properly and publicly last spring, contends there was no reason to revisit the vote in August following talk of the petition, and that spending $5,000 next fall for a general election item is a “lousy way” to spend that money. A member of the city’s finance committee, Childs also pointed out his “nay” vote on the waterfront trail project because he felt that safety concerns in initial plan had not be vetted adequately for a $250,000 project, and in doing so demonstrated that he’ll butt heads with other council members over spending.

In closing, each candidate was asked to differentiate himself from the other, since the two clearly respect one another and agree on many broad topics. Childs pointed to his life experience as something that separates him from the younger Pinneo, as well as knowledge working with nonprofit organizations. Pinneo criticized two specific votes cast by Childs while on the council — one to give the city’s legal advertising to the Port Orchard Independent rather than the Sun, and another about how Lodging Tax money is spent. Childs said he’d welcome a debate on those twoitems, and the men agreed to do so at an upcoming public event.

They’ll debate at a League of Women Voters forum at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 6, at city hall, and at a Port Orchard Chamber of Commerce forum on Oct. 13 at McCormick Woods.

Share on Facebook

A few regulars at the virtual Editor’s Desk got talking about comments Friday on an old post, so I’m hitting refresh on that conversation with a new blog post and answering a few questions they brought up.

At February’s panel discussion in Poulsbo I shared a few ideas for online comment moderation that our fellow Scripps newspapers were planning on experimenting with. I said it was likely the Sun could take direction from those tests to change how our comments are moderated. Colleen Smidt asked for an update, saying that “just letting it go” is having consequences.

Those consequences are a fear of mine, of course, and in her comment Colleen painted a pretty discouraging picture. Believe me, I take it to heart when I hear readers steer clear of our journalism because of what goes on in the discussion beneath.

Contrary to Colleen’s statement, we have not been “letting it go” lately. In fact, a few of the editors and some reporters have been more aggressive than usual over the past few months in removing comments, banning users, and turning the comments off stories after a certain period of time — we’ve just done so quietly. We also posted a page with our guidelines, and made those more prominent on each story online. I preferred to do that to a big announcement about the strategy; not to sneak up on the commentors, but as an attempt to quietly correct or cull out some of the worst of our comment boards. We still contact commentors individually, so it’s not like we’re doing this in the dark. I generally believe in incremental change rather than abrupt shifts of strategy to achieve a goal, I suppose. I also believe that verifying everyone’s name, in today’s day and age, is a hopeless quest, and I believe that anonymity through a pseudonym is not only acceptable, it’s an important thing to offer, despite some of the headaches. So major shifts that involved either of those options weren’t part of the discussion.

Have our recent actions worked? Colleen’s statements make me think we haven’t moved the needle much, though even she admits she’s been reading comment threads less frequently. (Go ahead and correct me below, Colleen, if I’ve misrepresented your statement.) I know I’ve received thanks for removing one abusive commentor, and my anecdotal observation has been that certain topics are seeing less of the worst statements — the protracted conversations do still exist, but we’re trying to relegate those to the letters to the editor, which we rarely monitor closely. Opinion pieces like letters get a different treatment, because they are a forum for opinions.

Those heated threads for certain issues may always exist, and for now I’ve decided to err on the side of allowing that on our site rather than dictate what stories people can and cannot comment on, or try to shut things down altogether.

Exercising control over where comments appear was the tactic taken by my fellow editor and friend Joe Howry, at the Ventura County Star. I’ve shared his recent column (which had over 700 comments when I counted last week) with a few people, but essentially Joe got sick and tired of comments. Really sick and tired, if you read his acerbic column that calls his online community a “cesspool.” Joe doesn’t pull his punches. His decision — because a technical solution was not happening anytime soon — was to limit the stories readers could comment on, and then aggressively moderate those threads. He tells me he’s enjoyed the change so far.

Other ideas I’ve seen recently in the industry: leaving certain stories off-limits for comments (we have a modified version of this, with child sex offense cases, and I like parts of this idea); outsourcing comment moderation, like the Boston Globe has done (I don’t really like giving away that control, as much of a burden as it may be); verifying every single user who signs up with a phone call (this is pretty tricky tech-wise and staffing-wise, and may not really help much); or just turning them off entirely (that is, burying your head in the sand).

There may still be a technological solution, but we’re not inventing it here. We’re sticking with some simple principles we’ve believed all along that can apply no matter what software you’re using — participating in the forums ourselves to answer questions or explain policy, asking users to help by flagging inappropriate comments, making our guidelines clear and enforcing our stated guidelines as often as possible. We don’t get everything, some critics accuse. To me it’s like one person refereeing a fast-paced basketball game — some people get away with a foul because the ref doesn’t see everything, but that doesn’t mean the foul he saw you commit is any less of a foul.

It’s ongoing, it’s evolving, it’s a difficult question to get agreement on, and we’ll never make everyone happy — even in our own newsrooms. So let’s keep discussing it.

Now, I’ll offer a few answers to questions you guys raised on the other blog post.

Robin asked… I’d suggest creating a separate anonymous forum not directly linked to articles. There people could talk about anything they wanted. Staff could select user moderators and these moderators could direct the flow of conversation. Folks who enjoy trolling and flaming could have a board for that. Folks who want to discuss community issues in a civil forum could have that too.

I respond… Howry’s paper offers something like what Robin suggests. You know what happens? The trolls are kind to each other in that open forum, chatting respectfully about the weather or whatever’s on their mind. Then they find a story, and start trolling again. Separating trolling from a civil forum isn’t always so cut and dried, and trying to say “you guys play over here, the adults are talking over here” seems a little condescending and doomed to fail. We also tried open forums a few years ago, before we had comments enabled on the stories. They were a dud.

Sharon O’Hara asked… Do the blog posts fit in with and represent the position of the Kitsap Sun to inform and stay in business?

I respond… Allowing readers to comment isn’t part of the historical mission of professional journalism in Kitsap County, but allowing online feedback certainly has become part of the paper’s role. People go on and on with hypothetical “good” and “bad” examples of comments in this argument, so I know the danger in me doing what I’m about to do. One struck me recently, on this story, as a reminder of the value of anonymity. A homeless woman, who probably feels stigmatized because of her current place in life, had a forum to share her experience. It was a short comment, the lengthy thread itself had plenty of removed posts among the range of opinions on a high-profile issue, but hearing her voice informed me, at least in a small way that wasn’t part of the same old argument over the welfare state or concern for humanity. She had a voice. We try to facilitate the voice of the powerless when we report on issues like homelessness, and this was one other way we were able to do so. I think that’s in line with what we’ve always tried to provide, even with the baggage attached.

Colleen asked… Is the current environment of the comment forum driving down paid reader subscriptions? Is the current environment of the comment forum making it difficult to maintain or increase paid advertisers revenue levels? Will improving the environment of the forum with increased moderation even be possible with current staff numbers and or budget restrictions?

I respond… I doubt the comment threads have anything to do with print readership habits. Our print/online readers do overlap, but it’d be my guess that someone was fed up with the comment threads would be more likely to just stick to the print. I read the Seattle Times in print, for example, and as a result I have no idea what goes on in its online forums. Nor am I concerned. Print readership was eroding long, long before we started hosting comments, so I wouldn’t draw that conclusion from this new phenomenon. As far as the advertising question, the one fallacy I hear sometimes is that we like controversial comments because they boost page views. The fact is that isn’t the case. Even the stories with a large number of comments (letters to the editor) pale in comparison to our most read online stories (breaking news and obituaries) — and neither of those has a big problem with nasty comments back and forth. Advertisers want to be well-read, and our site experiences growth in that department nearly every month — because of our journalism and improvements in display or linking, not because of comments. And on the last question, I hinted at it above, but yes, I do believe it’s possible. We’re busy as ever in the newsroom, but we’ve evolved over the years to accommodate different tasks as they fit our primary task of reporting and editing. If it helps a staff member get engaged with the audience, they’ll spend more time in the comment threads, and thus the comment thread will improve. We don’t have a rule that reporters must participate in the comments, but it is encouraged. Maybe I’m hopelessly optimistic (actually I’m not, some mornings the comments put me in a sour mood), but I still think those comments can offer something worthwhile to the readers who chose to use them.

Ok, last thing, just for a read that’s interesting as journalism and anonymous comments continue this dance. The Everett Herald’s website was being used anonymously by a vested interest, and they called him on it. (Also interesting because the city of Bremerton uses red light cameras from an Arizona outfit, but not the same company as Everett.) I think this reinforces one of my tenants when I think about our forums and any online commentary: pay attention, but take it all with a grain of salt, and the truth eventually comes out.

—David

Share on Facebook