CoPress

In the age of interactive media, there’s an infinite opportunity for open discussion and idea sharing through comments. Turning these comments into a real conversation, however, is a challenge that news organizations confront on a daily basis.

“We want to position ourselves as the center of community while at the same time driving out hateful, hurtful and trollish commenters,” said Jack Lail, Director of News Innovation at the Knoxville News Sentinel, in an email. “It has proven difficult to say the least.”

One of the great things about the Web is that it allows anyone to comment what they think — but perhaps the biggest downfall to that is many of these comments are crude, malicious, self-promotional or plainly irrelevant. Read more →