Does Anonymous=Trouble?

About a year ago, my publication started posting reader comments about our work online, directly below all pieces posted on the Web site. The comments are anonymous. My editors thought the function would drive traffic to our Web site, stirring up excitement about otherwise mundane stories about the school budgets and tax assessments.

Since we're in the First Amendment business, this seemed to be a good idea. My direct phone number and e-mail address already appear in the paper and online, and the occasional critical letter to the editor about my work appears on the editorial page. What's the difference, really?

At first, it was fun. It was amazing to scroll to the end of your story and get instant feedback, good and bad. A few times, I got genuinely good story ideas, as readers suggested a different angle or framing for a piece I'd written. People often posted questions, seeking follow-up, and it gave me a sense of what people wanted to know in my next piece.

But my beat is one of the less controversial at my publication. People who write about violent crime, drug busts and court cases got a much different reaction online. In one case, a man accused of sexually abusing a child was acquitted. For weeks, the comment wars raged on past the life of the story, with his supporters and detractors defending and accusing him.

I wondered, what is this like for this man? His family? The child's family? Terrible enough an innocent person had their reputation damaged through the charges and following trial. But instead of the story disappearing the day after his acquittal, it lives on, posted in our "most popular" story queue. While reporters and editors obsess over every detail to include or discard from a story, readers could fling any accusation onto the Web site. We have a mechanism to report any profane or inappropriate postings, but sometimes there is a lag between posting and removal.

One day, I had to cover a woman's suicide. We do not write about suicide unless it happens in a public place with witnesses. Sadly, the woman jumped from an Interstate 95 overpass into a river, and it involved a high-profile rescue attempt with multiple drivers calling 911. I wrote a short news piece, and posted it the same day on our Web site. Within the hour, several people had posted, making derogatory, cruel comments about the then-unidentified woman. I was stunned. Are we really that callous as a society, to make jokes about a person whose suffering was so great she leapt from a 90ft bridge? Didn't readers know this woman's family might eventually read their comments? The comment function was quickly disabled for that story.

I thought about all of this when I was driving home from class yesterday, listening to NPR's On the Media. It aired a piece about this very issue.
http://www.onthemedia.org

Click on "Comments on Comments." It's short -- six and a half minutes.

On the Media interviewed an editor at The Roanoke Times, an excellent paper, which supports the use of anonymous comments. The editor said people who fear for their job can shed light on an incident or story angle that has been overlooked by the paper. She used teachers as an example. I agree, this is when comments are most useful, when the postings are like a bulletin board. It's a mix of civil reaction and news, as well as criticism of our coverage.

I get squeamish when the criticism veers toward judgment. Not judgment of my work or the paper, but my sources. During On the Media, Ira Glass, producer of the public radio show "This American Life," describes an incident where online posts about a story on runaway teenage girls turned ugly. People had started calling the girls terrible names, and the show eventually had to take the posts down. Glass said he feared the online comments would have a chilling effect on future sources. "We felt like it was an act of bad faith with our interviewees. We don't need to create a forum for the audience to express their mean-hearted opinions about people who open themselves up to us and to them. There's just no reason for that. We don't have to endorse that by giving it a space," Glass said.

I share his fear. Why should people talk to me, when they know they will be subjected to what's essentially open season in the public square, where people can lob rotten fruit from their laptop, or worse, hate speech? As a former education reporter, I'm especially worried about comments on stories that involve children and teenagers. Is it ethical to expose children to this possibility, when their parents think they are submitting to a fun feature on their child's trip to a spelling bee, or athletic competition?

I don't see the public going back to an online world without comments. So newspapers will need to find a way to keep them, with limits. Newspapers hold power-brokers accountable with stories and editorials, and shouldn't the public have the same right? At the same time, as long as we don't print certain things in the newspaper, we should hold our online contributors to similar standards.