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The April 26, 2009 New York Times Magazine includes a story by Virginia Heffernan called, “Comment is King: Reader Comments Are A Key Part of Online Journalism. So Why Do They Mostly Disappoint.” I’ve decided to take this article to mean that I am on the cutting edge of the commentary zeitgeist, seeing as I wrote about both Virginia Heffernan and reader comments within the past few weeks.

(By the way, my April 5 letter about Heffernan’s iPhone problem did not get published. That makes Mrs. Dogood - 0, Editors - 4. Grrrr. I’m taking solace in the fact that no one else’s letters about this article were published either.)

Despite her preference for Blackberries, I have to give Heffernan props for pointing out what I see as a major problem with online reader comments: they suck. People are uninformed or they can’t make complete sentences or they’re prejudiced or they’re just plain mean. In theory, I like the idea that everyone is allowed a voice. But in practice, too many voices means that none are heard. It’s like those Malcolm Gladwell-esque experiments they do in supermarkets. Present people with a choice of six flavors of jam and they’re perfectly happy to select their favorite and go buy it. Present people with a choice of 30 flavors of jam and they get brain freeze and leave the store, sans purchase. I don’t have the time or energy to wade through 200 incoherent reader responses to find the three that might really rock my world, or even the world at large. Some are indeed more equal than others; we need editors to find them.

Heffernan does me a great service by giving name to more categories of reader commentary:

- Amens: I agree and THANK YOU for saying what I’ve always known

- Scolding dissent (as opposed to cogent dissent)

- Fact-checking: Long, itemized point by point, deconstructions

- Reiterations: Repeating the points of an article in slightly varied way

These are the comment types that a strong newspaper editor wouldn’t print. Conversely, these are the key letter types that are printed in featurey or specialty magazines. For example, those published in GQ, Shape or Self. (And in those cases, there are at least editors to highlight the letters that are written in complete sentences.) I suppose one way to identify a serious publication from a fluff publication is to count the prevalence of letters published that are Amens, Scolds, Fact-checks, or Reiterations.

Here are two excerpts from the Heffernan article that I’ll be thinking about in the days to come:

This echo-chamber effect is unpleasant, and it makes it hard to keep listening for the clearer, brighter, rarer voices nearly drowned out in the online din. Which is too bad: newspaper journalism benefits from reader comments. Creating registration standards, inventive means of moderating and displaying comments, membership benefits for regular posters and ratings systems for useful comments are just some of the ways that other news outlets like Slate have improved the quality of reader responses.

The pluralistic contention of the 1990s that everyone “deserves a voice” has come to terrifying life in the past 10 years on blogs, message boards and now Twitter. Everyone is published! But please, aim for originality and brevity when you post, and read what has already been posted. For models of the form, Slate’s Fray still can’t be beat (fray.slate.com/discuss).

This is the letter that I sent to the Times Magazine:
Heffernan’s observations are the reason why I read the letters in the New York Times print edition, but not the comments in the online version. When you write to the Times in print, you are required to supply your full name as a way of accountability for your words. But people can, and will, say anything online no matter how vituperative, condescending, or just plain silly, because they are allowed to do so with blind user names and pseudonyms. Requiring writers to properly identify themselves would go a long way to clearing out the clutter in the comments.

Back on March 22, I wrote about a letter to the New York Times travel section about Costa Rica. Today the Times ran a letter about the same article I responded to. This means that my letter is not getting published. So, to begin the running scorecard:

Mrs. Dogood - 0, Editors - 1

The letter they did run, written by Roger Latzgo, can be found HERE.

WHAT I LEARNED:

- I have to say that I agree with the Times‘ choice. Latzgo’s letter gives more valuable information to the traveler. He emphasizes safety and gives specific pricing, while my letter was more light on detailed information. The next time I try a travel letter, I will focus more on practical tips.

- The Times travel section letters have a print periodicity of two weeks - meaning that the letters about an article appear two weeks after the article ran. Other publications, and even other parts of the Times, work on different schedules.