Why do newspapers allow commenting on their articles and editorials on their websites? It seems to me that no matter what paper it is, in any community in the country, the biggest idiots on the planet can't wait to post something completely ridiculous. Seems like it serves very little purpose to me, other than to show the type of morons that live in that paper's area.

[Edited on April 26, 2011 at 11:03 AM. Reason : *]

4/26/2011 11:03:08 AM

Competition. If idiots that want to post comments on articles can't post them for one paper, they'll start going to sites that let them.

4/26/2011 11:10:27 AM

Buzzwords.

4/26/2011 11:23:11 AM

it's also interesting to see the levels of intelligence of folks commenting on local papers or WRAL vs. The Economist or HBR.

4/26/2011 11:33:56 AM

the Charlotte Observer blocked online comments on an article detailing a murder. A young black male attempted to rob a rich white male, and shot him twice in broad daylight. Luckily i saw some of the comments before they were removed/blocked, and it was an intense argument on race relations. basically just idiocy back and forth, but it's probably best they blocked it because some of the comments were outrageous.

4/26/2011 4:43:29 PM

Based on market research that allowing "social networking" will actually enhance traffic to their site so they can report unique IP address visits to their clients who buy ads with them to shore up their losses as the paper press slowly dies.

I agree it is stupid, but they are willing to gamble that their journalistic supremacy will far exceed any snarky comments potentially posted below. And plus they always reserve the right to omit any comments they choose.

4/26/2011 11:07:04 PM