The New York Times has begun a feature called "Our Top 10 Comments of the Week," a collection of what the paper considers its best comments "as selected by our readers and the journalists who moderate nearly every comment," according to the Times.
As you would expect, the comments they chose are generally thoughtful, well-considered and offered a point of view one might not have considered. Nothing provocative was featured (although provocative is not necessarily a bad thing).
This article seems in line with this article by the Times in November 2014 about its most influential commenters. It is an effort to take comments seriously at the Times, and recognizes (I think) the value readers place on the paper's comments section. The Times is treating this like valued content - it's content the paper sells. I suspect we might see more Times stories about trends in the comments section or profiles of commenters.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Friday, February 5, 2016
The Troll Hunters
This is a very interesting and disturbing story in the MIT Technology Review called "The Troll Hunters," about Internet hate speech and journalists who cover/expose it in Sweden. It is sort of like Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator" only instead of child molesters it's people who post hate speech online. Journalists track down Internet trolls who slander or harass others and confront them with the evidence, live on camera.
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