NPR closes comments section: Where are conversations happening now?
On news sites, comments sections are increasingly seen as a haven for trolls. Why news sites are turning to social media to build reader engagement.
Michel Martin (l.) weekend host of NPR鈥檚 'All Things Considered,' interviews NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the National Building Museum as part of NPR鈥檚 annual 'Weekend in Washington' in October 2015 in Washington, D.C.
Paul Morigi/AP Images for NPR/File
NPR announced in a blog post on Wednesday that it would remove public comments sections from articles posted on its website.
鈥淎fter much experimentation and discussion, we've concluded that the comment sections on NPR.org stories are not providing a useful experience for the vast majority of our users,鈥� .
The decision is an increasingly common one. The tail end of 2014, for example, saw sections in a matter of weeks, noted the Nieman Lab in 2015. Vice Motherboard, the Daily Dot, the Daily Beast, the Verge and Bloomberg last year, according to Wired.
In many cases, editors are finding that users on comments sections are irregular readers. 鈥淚s it really a community, if it鈥檚 people bouncing in and out?聽 Is it someone who really loves NPR?鈥� says Claire Wardle, research director at Columbia University鈥檚 Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
鈥淧eople now are more likely to bump into a news story from a site they didn鈥檛 interact with,鈥� meaning editors who want to cultivate a community around their brand may not see that born out in comments. 鈥淚t has lent itself to the idea that comments are angry, and not that useful,鈥� Ms. Wardle tells 海角大神.
In the case of NPR, only a tiny fraction of the audience had actively used the sections. 鈥淭he NPR.org audience has grown dramatically in recent years, to between 25 and 35 million unique visitors each month," wrote Mr. Montgomery. "But far less than 1% of that audience is commenting, and the number of regular comment participants is even smaller.鈥�
Social media is taking an increasingly dominant role in the distribution of news, with they use it as their chief source. NPR pointed to its varied efforts on those channels, calling it 鈥渙ne of our most powerful sources for audience interaction,鈥� and said it would be investing greater efforts in that allows reporters and audiences to co-develop story ideas.
In leaner times, newsrooms aren鈥檛 necessarily throwing money at social media.
Andrew Losowsky, project lead at , which develops open-source software for digital engagement, tells the Monitor that there were drawbacks with focusing too heavily on social media site such as Facebook and Twitter.
鈥淵ou have no control over the platform, no control over moderation tools, and no control over data. It鈥檚 very hard to build relationships over Twitter,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou need to be thinking of 鈥榚ngagement funnels鈥� 鈥� how to get people more dedicated to your product. That鈥檚 very hard to initiate and maintain, and harder if it鈥檚 on someone else鈥檚 platform.鈥�