Journalism professor Clyde Bentley offers up reasons why some traditional journalists don’t like the idea of anyone being allowed to add comments to their articles online:
- “[traditional journalists] were shocked at the lack of interest from the blog world when they wrote informative, well-crafted and traditional essays.”
- “Journalists are steeped in a culture of insecurity. We send our stories through a gauntlet of copy editors. We fact-check the quotes. And we buffer every statement we can with “allegedly” and “according to…”
- “Many of us grew up in a business where the end of the story was the end of the story. Period.”
- “The inarticulate sniping of a few know-it-alls adds nothing to the day’s report. Besides, they were embarrassing.”
- “…the immediacy, personal tone and volume of comments that took them aback.”
- “Errors are sins. Comments point out errors and therefore damn us to media hell.”