Takeover of the trolls: how newspapers can shake off the haters

Trolls: The bane of many a news site

As a former editor I know that one of the biggest daily headaches in the newsroom is reader comments on website stories and social media.

Got a controversial issue? If so, you can guarantee it’ll be made ten times more controversial by the people behind the curtain of the web who have their say without saying who they are.

So with all the ‘trolling’, ‘hating’ and inane backbiting that can go on at the end of news reports, why allow comments at all?

Well, despite the problems they can cause, reader comments add value in a variety of ways:

– Allowing readers to comment on stories gives them ownership of an issue and therefore ownership of the newspaper title providing the stage for debate – in a sense it makes the news site more important to the readers – making them more likely to return.
– Reader comments sometimes give a human voice which couldn’t be shown in a story for whatever reason. Not all comments lack value, instead some can really shed light on how a story or issue has affected a real person. And sometimes this can allow for follow-up stories with that user too.
– Stories with comments, controversial or not, get more clicks and hits than stories without. They generate discussion, debate and downright outrage, and all of that gets other people clicking to read the unfolding drama. The most unlikely stories can find themselves at the top of the web hits list just because of the comments left by website users. Popular stories mean popular sites and more advertising revenue as a result.

Of course, this all happens on news providers’ social media sites as well – but the beauty of website comments is that they ‘belong’ to that newspaper. Those readers have made the effort to create an account and log in to that website in order to have their say – that effort is invaluable not only in terms of advertising revenue, but also in terms of loyalty; getting people to sign in almost allows a newspaper to claim that person as their own and, more than ever before, having loyal online readers is important.

So how can newspapers make the most of online comments and balance the headache of irrelevant or legally dodgy comments with the rewards of allowing readers a space to have their say?

One of the biggest factors causing problems for websites is the cloak of anonymity the internet provides. Allowing people to choose usernames which don’t reveal who they are means users feel they can be totally honest, therefore prompting more people to join the conversation. Unfortunately it also means many of those comments stray from the realms of honesty to something much more extreme – confrontational, angry, insulting and so OTT that their authors couldn’t possibly believe what they are writing…could they??

For this reason, according to a podcast featured on www.journalism.co.uk , the Chicago Sun Times and Reuters have both banned commenting from their websites and The Huffington Post now only allows people to sign in via social media – meaning their identity is more transparent. The latter solution sounds a great way around the issue – but social media does not necessarily garner comments of a higher quality. Currently links to stories on regional papers’ Facebook pages tend to generate more comments than stories on the news sites themselves due to the ease of interaction (users are usually logged into the social network already, removing the obstacle to commenting). But even with user identities revealed, a lot of comments on newspaper social media sites are abusive or irrelevant and many also seem to be uninformed – with people forming opinion without clicking through to see the full story on the website. While the latter would not be an issue if social media was the way into commenting on a news site, it is hard to see how the former issues would be different. And then of course there is the problem of ownership again – social media log ins, even onto a newspaper site, take the hits and loyalty value of that log in away from the news provider and back to the social media provider.

Most newspapers publish stories to allow ‘post moderated’ comments on their sites – meaning comments do not have to be checked by a moderator before they appear. Much of the time it seems comments left by the public are rarely looked at by journalists following publication and legally it’s only comments which are seen to be defamatory or legally unsound that need to be taken down. Dodgy comments are usually flagged up by website users rather than newspaper staff – and this again raises the issue of whose role it is to ‘police’ comments. With the huge amount of work already resting at the feet of reporters in modern newsrooms the extra job of moderating online comments would be virtually impossible to manage.

In fact, it could be a full-time job checking and responding to online comments – but unfortunately this is a position which most editors don’t have the budget to fill. Those who do have web editors usually have them tied up with troubleshooting, publishing and promotion – again time and money does not allow for a full-time web discussion moderator.

But, with more and more newspapers building their communities online rather than in print, perhaps this is a role that needs to be considered for the future. Turning the comments from a one-way response into a conversation with the news provider can surely only strengthen that bond with readers – as already done by national titles like the Guardian. Taking a firm stance on policing the quality of comments would also show people what was expected and hopefully, in turn, generate comments with a greater value. There is opportunity, if managed correctly, for regional papers to become the social voice of the community they serve – providing discussion points and chairing the ensuing debate both on websites and social media. But this can only be done if managers recognise the value this could add to their product and invest in the staff to make the model work effectively.

December 3, 2014 1

How fast is valued over foundation in the world of social media news

This tweet made me laugh, and then it made me stop and think about how social media has changed the way news outlets respond to breaking news.

In the olden days (just a year or two ago) news organisations would get reports of an explosion from people on the phone, on email and perhaps on Twitter and Facebook too. The old mantra was to get as much information as possible, then phone the police and find out if the reports could be confirmed. As soon as that information was granted we would write a report for the internet which we would then share on social media. We would then update that report as the news changed. In an ideal world, the publication of this first report would take no more than ten minutes. But, in reality, it could take much longer, depending on the response from the authorities and how lively our website was feeling that day.

The old mantra also used to be ‘no point in publishing if you haven’t got anything to say…’ with the idea that established news organisations were better be late and informed, than rushed and flimsy.

Oh, how times have changed.

Now, the people using Twitter are the eyes of the world. As proved by this tweet, people on social media report a noise like an explosion in Manchester. Give the BBC ten minutes to get the story online and that’s ten minutes where people interested in finding out more have been searching, retweeting and clicking on any accounts of said loud noise. It doesn’t matter if those tweets being retweeted are from people who have sought to establish if the explosion has happened or not. Twitter doesn’t care if information is correct as much as it cares about information first. By the time the BBC tweets out its factually accurate news report, it has missed out on hundreds of hits, clicks and retweets and already it looks ‘out of date’.

So, what to do instead? If every cough, sneeze and loud bang that was tweeted was then picked up and reported on by traditional news sources then people would soon tire of the scores of mistaken explosions being reported inaccurately and would rightly accuse the BBC, or whoever, of trashy journalism based on flimsy sources. From experience, I would say this is a deciding line based on individual circumstances. The newsdesk has to make a snap decision about the ‘quality’ of the original report source before deciding if it’s worth pursuing. Usually there will have been at least three tweets from different people before calls are put in to the authorities and, depending on the potential severity of the situation, that’s when a decision will be made to put a ‘we are aware of a breaking news event, check here for more updates’ tweet and story online.

Where that story then goes is up to Twitter and the people using it (including other news providers, as proved by this tweet) – but the point is, if it’s a big tale, you were the first to break the story (even if it was a non-story at the time) and your tweet and tale will have people following you for the story rather than a rival.

Journalists are being forced to learn and adapt with the changes that social media throws at them and mistakes will sometimes be made along the way. It could have turned out these explosions were the start of something life changing. It in fact developed no further than a storm in a Twitter-tea cup – a prime example of how In the melee that is social media, traditional news sources are fighting to keep their place as the ‘go-to’ providers of information and more and more emphasis is being placed on speed over substance.

November 25, 2014 0

No ifs, no butts, Kim Kardashian is never going to break the internet – she IS the internet

Above: A meme parodying the Break the Internet Kim Kardashian Paper magazine cover

Anyone who has been online, or who, let’s face it, has stepped out of the house in the past couple of days, will have seen THAT picture of Kim Kardashian and her gigantic, shiny bottom (except my office room mate it turns out – but let’s gloss over that).

Just in case you have been elsewhere over the past couple of days though, the image I’m referring to is on the front of Paper magazine. It’s a cheeky picture (so to speak) of Kim Kardashian looking knowingly over her shoulder at the camera, wearing nothing but a pearl choker, long black gloves and a bottle and a half of Johnson’s Baby Lotion. Her famous derriere is on full display and seems more enormous than can be humanly possible on a woman whose waist is probably only the circumference of my head.

Beneath the image are the words: Break the Internet Kim Kardashian

It reads like a command. And we know it’s never going to happen as Kim is the internet. While some live or die by the sword, Kim lives or dies by the world wide web. And at the moment it is holding strong under the millions and millions of tweets, retweets and shares of this image and the thousands of memes which have been inspired by it.

If it wasn’t for Twitter, or the Daily Mail website, most of us wouldn’t have seen or heard of this image. Much less be talking about it. Most of us wouldn’t even know who Kim Kardashian is. Or care. The only reason we are talking about it (including me) is because everybody else is. It’s a self perpetuating cycle and an excellent illustration of the power of the internet and digital technology and the way that it has changed the way news is delivered – with readers and their appetites driving the news, rather than the news being prescribed to its audience by journalists. The one-way channel of news delivery is no more. And if you don’t believe me, check out these reports on the Kardashian bottom by respected industry titles including the Telegraph, the Independent and the Guardian. I don’t think any of these titles would have covered Buttgate if it wasn’t for the audience appetite for the story.

In a world where news and information fights to be seen alongside other news and information – important things; news of conflict, hope, death, human crisis, frailty, happiness and love – there is Kim Kardashian’s bottom and all that it stands for.

UPDATE: As an experiment to demonstrate the power of the subject, I measured the number of views I got on this page over the 24 hours from publication, with the prediction that it would be my most viewed post to date. Here are the results:

On publishing this post I promoted it in the way I have promoted all of my other blog posts – by uploading the link and a picture to my Rebecca Whittington Media Facebook page which I then shared on my personal Facebook account as well, tweeting about it twice on Twitter at the time of publication using appropriate hashtags and sharing the blog link on Linkedin the following morning. I deliberately didn’t promote more on social media than I have with any other posts so I could measure the impact of the story and keywords.

On Twitter the tweet reading ‘#KimKardashian #breaktheinternet a prime example of how digital has turned the tables on traditional news sourcing rebeccawhittingtonmedia.com/2014/11/13/no-…‘ was favourited, retweeted and replied to by one follower who himself had 1,810 followers. It was also retweeted only by another follower who had 587 followers. I have not looked to see if it was retweeted from either acccount – but if I do later I will update here.

On Facebook the post on my Rebecca Whittington Media page reached 201 people and the post link had 36 clicks on it. Two Facebook users (one being me) shared the post from the page. There were two likes on the post link from the page and two likes on the shared posts.

I can’t see the stats for my Linkedin profile as I’m too tight to pay for premium, so I will have to factor that non-result into the mix.

On returning to the blog today just before 4pm I found ‘No ifs, no butts’ – my sixth blog post to date – had enjoyed a total of 141 views. Previously my most popular post was You know it’s significant when you change your Twitter handle which had 57 views in total, followed by Board will strengthen the voice of newspapers – now time to start work on diversity with just 16 views. These are views of the individual posts alone – my blog page as a whole has had 45 views – suggesting the majority of views on the Kardashian post and some views of the Twitter handle post had come from either direct links from Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin or specific search terms which in turn had seen the post listed in the search results.

On the day of publication there were 129 views on the blog alone and 152 on my website as a whole. The views on my site were from the following countries:

Country	Views
United Kingdom	131
United States	12
Germany	3
Australia	3
Canada	1
South Africa	1
France	1

Out of those views 53 came from Facebook and 15 from Twitter with a further 10 coming from a Facebook source. Only one view came from a search engine term (term could not be identified).

Today there were 12 views on the post and 17 views on the website overall. The views on my site were from the following countries:

United Kingdom	13
Netherlands	1
Republic of Korea	1
United States	1
Singapore	1

Out of those views 3 came from Facebook and 1 from Twitter. Only one view came from a search engine term (term could not be identified).

CONCLUSION

Overall it’s definitely fair to say this experiment lived up to the prediction that this would be my most popular blog post by a country mile. As predicted, the inclusion of hot search terminology and popular subject (Kim Kardashian, butt/bottom) meant strangers from far and wide were flocking to see what the links had to offer. What did baffle me was how few people seemed to arrive through search terms. In fact, it was not fully clear from the data offered by Wordpress what the method was for 50 of the visitors to the page on the first day – only 79 were accounted for. This is something I would possibly be able to find out if I paid a subscription to WordPress, but, as I don’t, unfortunately it remains a mystery.

I was also quite surprised by how many of those visitors were from countries other than the UK. It’s obvious Kim Kardashian’s bottom knows no international boundaries.

Since the experiment I have enjoyed a raise in the number of daily visitors to my site, particularly from the US. However, what is interesting is that it’s not this post catching people’s attention, but instead is The Will Cornick dilemma which seems to be gaining the most individual visitors.

This has been an interesting experiment which has inspired a study I am now working on as part of my research project – I’ll update on this blog when I can reveal more.

November 13, 2014 1

Board will strengthen the voice of newspapers – now time to start work on diversity

Above: The New York Times newsroom of 1942 – not a woman in sight.

Have you ever watched a TV drama in which an unscrupulous journalist has done just about everything possible to get THE story? The tired portrayal of a hard-nosed hack is trotted out by many a scriptwriter, cementing the image of a person who would quite happily sell their own grandmother in exchange for a crumb of a story which would make a front page. I remember watching an episode of Doctor’s once (I was off sick, although that’s no excuse, I know) in which a rookie reporter desperate for the tale stuck their foot in the front door frame of a grieving mother’s home in order to be let into the property. On being shoved back out of the house the reporter then proceeded to shout threats through the letterbox before going on to publish a pack of lies on the front page of their local paper. Note to non-newsroom readers, this is NOT what happens in real life. In real life most reporters (not all, admittedly) follow a code based on law and ethics which would have seen them politely ask if the grieving woman wanted to pay tribute in the paper. If she said no the reporter would then leave and not return. They would not go on to print a lot of made up stuff in order to get revenge for the lack of story, but instead might file nothing, or might report the basic facts provided by the police or coroner. But sadly, due to some unscrupulous journos, some unimaginative scriptwriters and one very long Leveson Inquiry (which put all journalists on a par with the serpent in the Garden of Eden, bankers and expense-fiddling MPs) the reputation of journalism and the industry has become very shaky indeed.

So, in my mind it is excellent news that the Newspaper Society – which represents local and regional press – and the Newspaper Publishers Association, which acts on behalf of national press providers, is to merge to form a ‘united voice’ for the industry, as reported today on Hold the Front Page.

In an ever changing world in which news is being accessed by a growing audience in myriad ways it makes sense to tackle issues that challenge all newspapers as a united front. Leveson may have barely touched upon regional news provision during the inquiry, but the fallout of the hearing was strongly felt in newsrooms up and down the country. I felt it keenly as the editor of a weekly newspaper at the time; despite working hard as a campaigning newspaper, celebrating the community we served and supporting businesses, charities and good causes, I was regularly quizzed about my thoughts on ethics, my team and their reporting methods. One occasion (when a trainee reporter had failed to adequately cover a charity raffle story) I was told all I cared about was selling papers and asked quite aggressively asked ‘how can you sleep at night?’ (I did point out this was a bit of an overreaction and the accuser did apologise, but it stung all the same).

I do think things have improved. Time is a great healer and most editors work hard to make sure their teams behave in an ethical way which reflects well on them as individuals and on the newspapers they work for as well. I don’t think a unified board at the time of Leveson would have stopped the perception of journalism being a crooked practice, but it would have strengthened the voice, experience, values and opinions being provided by the industry as the counter balance. It would have allowed regional news providers to seek support and fellowship during difficult times and it would have shown the vast extent of the ‘good’ journalists against the handful of ‘bad’ who had so damaged the industry’s name.

I do have to say though there are still huge mountains to be climbed in the industry. It is a real shame and quite indicitive that in representing an industry of thousands, there is only one female board member. Local World’s Lisa Gordon sticks out on the list of white men in suits like a sore thumb. Jeremy Spooner is correct in saying ‘the news media industry is a diverse and vibrant sector’ but while the new board represents the bredth of publishers in terms of ‘family-owned local newspapers alongside large national titles’ it is also sadly representative of the inbalance of men to women running these companies. Let’s hope that the board recognises the mirror it holds up to the industry and works to implement change in order to bring more diversity into newspapers’ workforce and senior management structures.

November 10, 2014 1

Hyper-local: While the online debate continues, Made in Leeds marches onto our screens

Work has been going on behind the scenes between regional newspaper publishers and the BBC to allow all parties a satisfying slice of online hyper-local video sites. Well, according to Johnston Press CEO Ashley Highfield, that’s the case anyway.

Highfield said this week that JP had been in talks with the Beeb to come up with a solution to a problem that’s been lingering like a bad smell for several years now. The conundrum up until this point has been that in launching hyper-local sites the BBC would use its vast resource to monopolise a market which really belongs to someone else, thus probably putting already impoverished and super-stressed newspaper journalists out of a job. The fear was that Auntie would squash the work of regional newspapers in her mighty wake and really, it just wasn’t fair. The BBC, wanting to play nice did back off from its hyper-local plans (they were going to cost too much anyway) and then the bid was thrown out entirely.

But the Beeb still needed to do better, as did newspaper sites which were growing audience but not meeting the expectations of quality. Cue, a lot of behind the scenes jiggery pokery with exec types (and probably quite a few corporate lunches) to come up with a brand spanking new idea which would be just the ticket for everyone involved: shared content and platforms. Rather than the BBC setting out a lot of very expensive hyper-local sites which it would then have to grow an audience for from scratch, why not instead use the audience already provided by well-established local titles and their existing online visitors? This will allow newspapers with struggling staff and equipment resource but with well-established online audiences to share that valuable asset with the BBC in return for production-quality broadcasts made by the corporation being screened on their websites. And most importantly for business, both parties get to claim the shared audience as their own. The bosses will see this as a win win for everyone. But it’s likely that the journalists on the ground will have a different opinion – with questions over product identity and voice being just some of the hot topics up for discussion.

While everyone’s back has been turned focusing on hyper-local video something completely new has snuck into the mix. A hyper-local television station. Made in Leeds – a television channel made for, well, Leeds, launches today. The channel, which has been lauded on my own freeview set as ‘coming soon’ for a number of weeks now, is available to watch on Freeview 8, Virgin 159 and, later this month, Sky 117. But it has to be said, that is pretty much all I know. Despite having worked until last Friday for the Yorkshire Evening Post – the newspaper for Leeds – I have seen or heard very little of Made in Leeds. While the channel has been in the planning for at least three years, I don’t really know who the actual people are behind the production. I also don’t know what to expect aside from a 24 hour daily schedule or where it slots into the market. It appears Made in Leeds is doing a soft launch, presumably to iron out any immediate problems before the flock of vultures descend and start picking over its potential carcass.

Competition is not a bad thing. And Made in Leeds might be just what viewers in the city are looking for. It’s got a great studio and has, so I hear, employed a lot of young talent, many of whom will be fresh, enthusiastic and throwing themselves into every opportunity the channel provides. But I struggle to see where Made in Leeds fits into the existing mix. Is it pitching itself at students and culture vultures – like a televised The City Talking – or is it going up against big hitters like Calendar, Look North or BBC Leeds? Is it spreading itself too thinly with a 24 hour offering rather than focusing on eight hours of specifically targeted programming? And what about online? Much of the information I have found out about it so far has been via Google rather than its own website. It has an exceptionally large twitter following (6,232 at last count) but doesn’t seem to really have set out its stall. In this world of millions of media offerings vying for a limited audience’s attention – an audience which is more and more watching online rather than over traditional television sets – has Made in Leeds done enough to get people to sit down, switch on and stay tuned? I’ll certainly take a look when I get home tonight, but I’m yet to be convinced I’ll still be watching in six months’ time.

November 6, 2014 0

The Will Cornick dilemma

Some news stories stay with you as a journalist long after the media frenzy has left the building and moved onto the next hot topic. For each journalist there are incidents and happenings that are the backbone of your career. A defining moment. The killing of Ann Maguire was one such story for me.

That Monday (April 28, 2014) I was leading the newsdesk for the Yorkshire Post and the Yorkshire Evening Post.

It was about 2pm and I was talking to the YEP crime reporter about a story he was working on when someone came over and said ‘A teacher has been stabbed to death at a school in Leeds’.

It was unbelievable. The world stopped for a second. That moment is a snapshot in time for me – but in reality we had to move exceptionally fast. It was important that we covered this with accuracy, depth and with our team always remembering that we were THE media outlet for Leeds – the ones who would continue to report long after the national media’s interest had waned. We needed to be first with the news but we also needed to act with sensitivity and integrity.

It transpired that Mrs Maguire, a well-liked Spanish teacher at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds, had been killed in front of her class by a 16-year-old pupil. The boy had been arrested, but not charged, meaning legally we could name him. Some of the nationals chose to follow this course. And the boy’s name was also being bandied about on social media, meaning anyone with the interest and the internet to hand would be able to find out his identity with just the click of a button.

So why did we choose not to name and was it the right thing to do? I believe it was. The teen was a child in the eyes of the law. And, until a court hearing found him guilty just yesterday (November 3, 2014), he was an innocent one at that. At the time of the killing we sat down and discussed ‘to name or not to name’? Legally we could have followed in the footsteps of the Sun and named him. But morally it felt wrong. Yes, we will have lost some web traffic to other sites which named the defendant, but we chose to take that hit. A better hit than damaging the reputation and standing of the newspaper titles in the communities which they served and which they continued to serve long after the nationals went away.

So we covered the story online and in print. We promoted our coverage through social media too, but we did not name the person responsible. Instead we celebrated the life of an influential, highly regarded and much loved woman. We opened a book of condolence and printed tributes in the papers. It felt like the right response to a terrible situation which would resonate in Leeds for a long time to come. Now, six months on, William Cornick has been jailed for killing Ann Maguire. And I still feel satisfied that we made the right choice.

Update – added November 13, 2014: This is an interesting insight into the legal side of things from Hold the Front Page’s legal column.

November 4, 2014 1

Getting in front of the camera

It’s a bit odd when you have been behind the news so long to be ‘in front of the camera’ instead.

http://www.prolificnorth.co.uk/2014/10/head-of-news-to-leave-yorkshire-post-for-phd-and-media-consultancy/

http://www.gorkana.com/news/consumer/people-news/new-role-for-yorkshire-posts-head-of-news/

October 31, 2014 0

You know it’s significant when you change your Twitter handle

This morning I did something significant. I changed my Twitter handle.

Now, it’s not so long ago – ten months to be exact – that I did exactly the same thing when I started working as the head of news at Yorkshire Post Newspapers. That action marked a massive change in my life. A new job, new colleagues and an amazing ten months working on some huge stories.

Today I changed my handle again. For a similar reason, but perhaps even a bigger change in my life. Because today is my first day of not working for a news corporation in a decade. And Monday will be my first day as a university employee and PhD student. If you had asked me ten months ago if I had expected to be in this position today I would have laughed.

I had been interested in teaching journalism at degree level for some time. But I never imagined the opportunity would arise so soon after moving to YPN. So when it did it was an excruciatingly difficult decision. It was a choice between a buzzing newsroom, great colleagues and friends and a well paid and esteemed position or teaching new talent, exploring my own capabilities and developing a career I had always hoped for – a completely new challenge.

I could easily chosen to stay. But the pros of this exciting new opportunity were too much to turn down. So I took a deep breath. Took the plunge and changed my Twitter handle.

Wish me luck!

October 31, 2014 1