AJC accolades
The AJC has been rated as one of the “best blogging newspapers in America.”
This was a case where the size of the project impressed enough of the Specials. “A massive selection of blogs,” wrote Akhidenor. “One has the feeling that the Atlanta Journal is simply throwing them all out there to see what sticks. Surprising amounts of the blogs do, indeed, stick.”
However “many of their blogs… are open to comments only during standard business hours. What’s up with that?”
Yeah. What is up with that?
Other good things to blog about: http://www.lomaglassceiling.com/
>> “many of their blogs… are open to comments only during standard business hours. What’s up with that?”
Yeah. What is up with that?
What’s up with that is that newspapers are responsible for the content on their web sites, even if the content is written by a reader as a blog comment.
By ‘responsible’ I don’t just mean that that a newspaper might be sued if a reader posts a libelous comment on newspaper web site. As journalists, the people who run newspapers have an ethical responsibility to make sure that what appears on their web sites meets at least some minimum standards.
Someone looks at every comment before it goes on the AJC’s web site. Comments can be rejected for a variety of reasons — pornography, hate speech, libel, etc. Moderation by a person also keeps spam off the paper’s blogs.
The AJC (and other newspapers) that only allow comments during business hours do so becuase that’s when there are enough people in the office to look at content. Newspaper web sites don’t usually make any money, so they’re not gonna pay any people money just to stay all night and review comments.
>> “many of their blogs… are open to comments only during standard business hours. What’s up with that?”
Yeah. What is up with that?
What’s up with that is that newspapers are responsible for the content on their web sites, even if the content is written by a reader as a blog comment.
By ‘responsible’ I don’t just mean that that a newspaper might be sued if a reader posts a libelous comment on newspaper web site. As journalists, the people who run newspapers have an ethical responsibility to make sure that what appears on their web sites meets at least some minimum standards.
Someone looks at every comment before it goes on the AJC’s web site. Comments can be rejected for a variety of reasons — pornography, hate speech, libel, etc. Moderation by a person also keeps spam off the paper’s blogs.
The AJC (and other newspapers) that only allow comments during business hours do so becuase that’s when there are enough people in the office to look at content. Newspaper web sites don’t usually make any money, so they’re not gonna pay any people money just to stay all night and review comments.
One more thing.
Comment moderation prevents people with weird browser problems from accidentally posting the same comment three times.
Comment moderation is one thing (and, I’m not so sure how much moderation actually goes in to it. Every time I’ve posted a comment it has been nearly instantaneous, but let’s assume that they do moderate every comment). But what the AJC does is beyond moderation. They can turn on moderation and hold every comment until it is approved. But on some of them, you can’t even submit a comment after business hours. That’s a little much, I think.