Comments: To Edit or Not to Edit?

Have you launched a blog for a client? Worked with a media company on a blog or other social media features? Chances are, implementing comments has brought the most amount of “fear” to the project.

Here at the mediabistro Circus conference, the question was asked of Paul Rossi, publisher of The Economist. How do they deal with comments? Do they have a specific editor who reviews them all?

Paul responded, “There is a very light editorial touch. They are all looked at manually. It would be something quite obvious we would take off. Traditionally in print the letters get printed once a week, we now put every single letter sent to us online. Online journalists are very exposed to what people are saying about them.”

Elaborating on The Economist‘s take on blogs, Rossi said, “Blogging may not be the best model for The Economist. There are some inherent issues with a business publication bogging. When we talk to our audience, the terminology of blogging is unappealing. When you ask a business audience if they read blogs, they say no.”

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