USA Today ends comments

You would think these things would be easy to figure out, but not always.

USA Today once had online comments (beginning in 2007 and at least until 2016). Sometime between those times the paper banned anonymous posts. The paper's redesign late last year removed all comments (Nov. 1, 2019). This change went by without much notice.

From the Editors:

Commenting changes: We've decided not to include commenting on stories for now. We're thinking about other ways for you to interact with our work and our journalists. You can find most reporters' Twitter handles at the bottom of their stories, and you can also join us on Facebook and across social media. 

Fair enough, but I always wish the editors would talk more broadly about the role of comments, if any, in the larger mission of newspapers in the marketplace of ideas.