I confess an addiction to reading news stories online. I spend far too much time every day browsing the New York Times, the Honolulu Advertiser, Newsweek, Time, and a few other websites… time that could be spent a little more productively, no doubt.
What I really can’t figure out is why I still glance at the comments that often accompany articles. The NY Times is the exception. They must edit the comments they get, because most of them seem reasonably intelligent. Newsweek, Time, and the Honolulu Advertiser though… ick. Glancing at their comments generally feels like tip-toeing through sewer water. Ninety-percent of it seems composed of insults and assorted name-calling, unreasoned hostility, baseless gossip, or diatribes that don’t address in any way the subject of the article (if we can assume some intentionality, I have to suppose these last are aimed at an earlier commentator, though I don’t wade that far in).
And yet I look! I guess I’m always hoping to see that things have improved, but that never happens.
I have some scenarios in my head about the people posting. At the Advertiser I think of those two old guys from the muppets, who sit in the theater audience lobbing insults at everything that happens on the stage – (some of you might be old enough to remember the muppets…) – only at the Advertiser the hecklers are a lot nastier. They come across as people who just don’t have lives, pitching shots because they don’t have anything else to do.
At the big magazines it feels like a different crowd. Here there just has to be a huge population of political hacks whose job it is (paid no doubt) to slime and smear.
Web 2.0 may still be a big deal, but for me it serves as a great demonstration of the value of a good editor.
Of course none of this is intended to discourage people from commenting here… after all, I get to approve all comments before they appear!
Update: same subject, much more funny writing:
“Local Idiot To Post Comment On Internet”
