It’s been fun to watch the Great Falls Tribune struggle with how to deal with on-line comments – especially the ones that are a little nasty.

Many newspapers are having problems adapting to the new type of discussion that used to happen at the coffee shops or around the water fountain. In fact, with circulation down, people being laid off or having their jobs shipped to who knows where, many newspapers are attempting to get in the social networking express lane and using their newspaper websites as a place to foster discussion.

As I have written before, I don’t really care for reporters who blog or newspapers that support blogs. They can’t beat us, so they tread into our territory, but I regress…

In 2010 if a newspaper story ticks someone off, a person can just head to their laptop and type a zinger of a comment in the comment section of the story, and BAM!

It seems every few months the Tribune runs an editorial from their leaders telling folks to be nice when they leave comments on-line. It hasn’t been working too well, so they did another editorial the day after Christmas warning their on-line community they had better watch out. Continue reading →