Clearly, comments and community are an area in the newspaper business that are strong. Some form of community is going to be a big part of the new strength.
I’d look to Dear Abby for a method for getting there.
- They don’t take everything that comes in the door — just the stuff they feel like publishing. In other words, they’re editors of people
- They clearly embellish and truncate the comments — basically use them as a jumping-off point, not a full-text memorandum.
So: newspapers should employ full-time editors to manage comments and thread them into a cohesive side story, linking out to the full blogs of people commenting.