Doug Feaver, a former Washington Post reporter and editor, has published a very interesting editorial today entitled “Listening to the Dot-Commenters.”  In the piece, Feaver discusses his personal change of heart about “the anonymous, unmoderated, often appallingly inaccurate, sometimes profane, frequently off point and occasionally racist reader comments that washingtonpost.com allows to be published at the end of articles and blogs.” When he worked at the Post, he fought to keep anonymous and unmoderated comments off the WP.com site entirely because it was too difficult to pre-screen them all and “the bigger problem with The Post’s comment policy, many in the newsroom have told me, is that the comments are anonymous. Anonymity is what gives cover to racists, sexists and others to say inappropriate things without having to say who they are.”

But Feaver now believes those anonymous, unmoderated comment have value because:

I believe that it is useful to be reminded bluntly that the dark forces are out there and that it is too easy to forget that truth by imposing rules that obscure it.  As Oscar Wilde wrote in a different context, “Man is least in himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”   Too many of us like to think that we have made great progress in human relations and that little remains to be done. Unmoderated comments provide an antidote to such ridiculous conclusions. It’s not like the rest of us don’t know those words and hear them occasionally, depending on where we choose to tread, but most of us don’t want to have to confront them.

It seems a bit depressing that the best argument in favor of allowing unmoderated, anonymous comments is that it allows us to see the dark underbelly of mankind, but the good news, Feaver points out, is that:

But I am heartened by the fact that such comments do not go unchallenged by readers. In fact, comment strings are often self-correcting and provide informative exchanges. If somebody says something ridiculous, somebody else will challenge it. And there is wit.

He goes on to provide some good examples.  And he also notes how unmoderated comments let readers provide their heartfelt views on the substance of sensitive issues and let journalists and editorialists know how they feel about what is being reported or how it is being reported. “We journalists need to pay attention to what our readers say, even if we don’t like it,” he argues. “There are things to learn.”

I applaud Mr. Feaver for this.  This is a struggle not just for journalists at major media outlets but also for bloggers like us here at the TLF.  There are times when very annoying, even hurtful things are said by anonymous commenters here at the TLF. Our policy, however, has generally been to allow a vibrant exchange of views, except in the rare circumstances where the commenter utters racial epithets or starts issuing death threats. Or, if a specific commenter goes into “stalker mode” and does nothing but post harassing, irrelevant comments all day, then those will occasionally be discarded. But, generally speaking, it’s “anything goes” here. (We even allow spam!)  Each author, however, is free to decide for themselves where to draw the line, but we all generally err on the side of completely unmoderated exchange for the reasons Feaver lists.  We know it is far more likely that we’ll get hostile anonymous comments rather than nice ones, but it’s good to get feedback of all varieties, even when it’s nasty.

From a policy perspective, however, this issue is taking on greater weight because some folks believe that unmoderated, anonymous user comments result in harassment, hate speech, defamation, or privacy violations.  As a result, there has been a growing chorus of critics who claim something must be done to remedy this problem.  Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, for example, have advocated a Civility Check that “can accurately tell whether the email you’re about to send is angry and caution you, “warning: this appears to be an uncivil email. do you really and truly want to send it?”” The state of Kentucky has considered legislation that would ban online anonymity, even though that would be clearly unconstitutional. Respected law school professors such as Mark Lemley and Daniel Solove have toyed with the idea of DMCA-like “notice-and-takedown” regime for potentially defamatory comments online.  I once even heard Cal-Western law school professor Nancy S. Kim suggest that blogs, social networking sites, and other interactive sites should institute a “cooling off period” to address cyber-harassment. By requiring all those seeking to comment to wait a certain length of time before a message or image is posted to a website, she hoped that some commenters might choose to tone down or even remove the potentially offending messages or images.

Of course, it is more likely that readers would just choose not to comment at all if any of these proposals where enshrined into law.  And that gets to the heart of what’s wrong with any potential legal response to this “problem” of online anonymous, unmoderated speech and user comments:  It will massively chill free speech and expression.  Sure, that would get rid of the hecklers and the jackasses who cause grief for some, but it would also deprive us of the many constructive user comments and criticisms that make the online experience — for better or worse — the most open, vibrant exchange of views ever known to man.

Finally, it goes without saying that this debate is fundamentally tied up with the future of Section 230 and the question of intermediary liability.  Currently, online service providers of all flavors are generally not required to police or screen user comments or force users to be authenticated and reveal their identities before posting comments.  Section. 230 has been the key to protecting intermediaries from punishing liability that would otherwise force them to severely curtail online expression, or run the risk of being driven under by the weight of endless lawsuits.  This is why I have argued that Sec. 230  is “the cornerstone of ‘Internet freedom’ in its truest and best sense of the term.”  But, again, all this could change if we are not vigilant in defending Sec. 230.

OK, now that I’ve made this impassioned defense of unmoderated and completly anonymous online exchange, let the hateful comments fly!

Over at Technology 360, Dennis Haarsager points out that there’s probably too much gloom-and-doom out there in the blogosphere regarding the future of various media platforms. He did phrase searches “to see how the media stacked up in the death department.” He got back the following results:

“death of television”, 13,000 results “death of TV”, 28,200 results “death of radio”, 227,000 results “death of newspapers”, 331,000 results “death of blogs”, “death of the blogs”, “death of the blog”, 81,400 results “death of the web”, 215,000 results “death of the net”, 746,000 results “death of the internet”, 1,910,000 results

No doubt—as Mark Twain might have said—the rumors of the death of media have been greatly exaggerated. And, as Mike Mansick of TechDirt points out, not all papers or media outlets are facing gloom and doom scenarios.

Nonetheless, many traditional media sectors and providers do find themselves in troubled waters today as tsunami of creative destruction tears through their markets. In our new “Media Metrics” report, Grant Eskelsen and I show how two sectors in particular—radio broadcasting and newspapers—are getting hammered particularly hard by a sort of “media perfect storm”:

• loss of protected markets or “protected scarcity” = there’s just no guaranteed audience anymore

• rapid technological change = the way media is created and transmitted has been completely transformed

• massive inflow of new competitors / platforms = no way to stop the deluge of new voices, including user-generated content

• loss of consumer confidence and allegiance = people have plenty of other places to turn their attention

• loss of advertiser confidence and allegiance = advertisers have plenty of other places to promote their goods and services (including direct-to-consumer appeals and ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing efforts)

• loss of investor confidence and allegiance = shareholders have lots of other places to invest their capital today

The results have been particularly grim for newspaper in recent months as various reports have noted. Over at the “Reflections of a Newsosaur” blog, Alan Mutter has been tracking the bad news closely. Last Friday he noted how “7 newspaper stocks hit record lows in 1 day,” and in a follow-up post this week he noted that:

In a historic rout, newspaper shares have lost nearly $4 billion in value in the first 10 trading days of July, an amount greater than the combined market capitalization of all but the three largest publicly held publishing companies. The $3.9 billion plunge in the value of newspaper stocks since the first of this month – a period marked by successive new lows in the prices of several issues – has dropped the collective value of the following publishers to just $3.6 billion: * A.H. Belo (AHC) today is worth $119 million, down 58% from $282 million when it began trading earlier this year as a free-standing newspaper publisher. * GateHouse Media (GHS), worth $59 million, down 95% from $1.2 billion at its curiously strong initial public offering in October, 2006. * Journal Communications (JRN), worth $266 million, down 78% from $1.2 billion on Dec. 31, 2004. * Journal Register Co. (JRCO), worth $6 million, down 99% from $746 million on Dec. 31, 2004. * Lee Enterprises (LEE), worth $145 million, down 93% from $2 billion on Dec. 31, 2004. * Media General (MEG), worth $248 million, down 83% from $1.5 billion on Dec. 31, 2004. * McClatchy (MNI), worth $387 million, down 93% from $5.7 billion on Dec. 31, 2004. * New York Times Co. (NYT), worth $1.85 billion, down 67% from $5.6 billion on Dec. 31, 2004. * Scripps (SSP), worth $522 million, which was newly launched as a pure-plan newspaper company on July 1, 2008. More details below. * Sun-Times Media Group (SUTM), worth $32 million, down 98% from $1.3 billion on Dec. 31. 2004. The only companies not on the above list are: * Gannett (GCI), worth a bit less than $4 billion, down 79% from $18.5 billion on Dec. 31, 2004. * News Corp. (NWS), worth $37.2 billion, down 36% from $58.4 billion on Dec. 31, 2004. * Washington Post (WPO), worth $5.5 billion, down 24% from $7.3 billion on Dec. 31, 2004. At today’s close, the total decline in value of the dozen newspaper shares trading since the first of the year was nearly $27.7 billion, a plunge of 35.7% in 6 1/2 months. This calculation does not include the shares of Scripps, which dropped some $6.2 billion in value on July 1 after the company’s non-newspaper assets were spun into a separate company. Counting Scripps, the aggregate value of newspaper shares dropped $10.2 billion since the first of this month. When you back SSP out of the calculations, you find that newspaper stocks have slipped $3.9 billion since July 1.

All I can say to this is Wow. Just… wow. These are stunning numbers, and if you need a graphic illustration of how much bleeding has been taking place, take a look at this chart showing newspaper stock drops over the past 4 years:

Just miserable. And it reminds me of the market cap chart that Grant and I put together for our Media Metrics book that compared Google’s market cap to the market caps of the biggest players in the newspaper business (as of January):

And, when you realize how rapidly newspaper advertising revenues are plummeting, you begin to understand why many analysts speak in gloom-and-doom terms about this sector:

And daily circulation is falling rapidly overall…

Folks, there is just no getting around the fact that the newspaper sector is in serious, serious trouble. That’s not to say that they’ll all be going the way of the Dodo bird tomorrow. But many will die. Some potentially soon.

Others will reinvent themselves as online portals of hyper-local content and find new ways to connect with their readers. But hyper-localism can only get you so far, and things will never be like they were in the past.

If you want to read the absolute best analysis of where things stand today—and what the newspaper industry will need to do to re-invent itself in the face of this challenge—I highly recommend Terry Heaton’s article about “Failure at the Top.” It’s must-reading on the subject. He argues:

To be sure, the paradigm of ad-supported content isn’t going to go away. Media companies will continue to make good money from their own content, but it will never be the growth engine it once was. We simply must find another way, because the more advertising evolves without us, the harder it will be for anybody to sustain the kind of business we’ve known in the past, much less make it grow. These are challenging times for those at the top of media companies big and small, and while we can easily point fingers of blame at culture, technology or a hundred other things, it’s the responsibility of our leaders to rise to meet business challenges. The only failures that matter, therefore, are those at the top.

Make sure to read his entire article to see what he means by that and what he recommends to change it.

(In the meantime, it sure couldn’t hurt for Congress or the FCC to give the newspaper industry a little regulatory leeway as it attempts to keep from drowning. The archaic regulations that continue to bind this sector are even more unjustifiable in light of the challenges described above.)