One of the most challenging issues to the reputation of news organizations is how to deal with the stream of online comments, particularly those that stray from civility.

Moderation often only infuriates commenters by delaying or filtering their views and preventing real-time debates. But the absence of moderation can be a free-for-all in no one's best interest, eventually eroding the reputation of the host.

The New York Times is reworking its comments system to permit trusted readers --- those who consistently supply well-received comments --- to jump the queue and be posted publicly immediately. Others will have to await a moderator's touch. The results will be interesting to see.

What do you think of this?

It didn't take a fertile imagination to believe one day someone would be offered money to link to a company website. Such is the value of a hyperlink.

Now a Gawker.com writer has an offer in hand to indicate it's happening.

Hamilton Nolan has laid out the correspondence that indicates an advertising agency would pay him $175 to link to a website inside one of his stories. The agency suggests it has bloggers linking to its clients, including several prominent companies, for a fee.

In the hours since the story was posted, one publication and one client have denied they are associated with the practice.

The Yakima Herald-Republic has decided to introduce a registration system to identify those who provide public comments on its website.

"The system we established in 2008 to foster conversations between the newspaper's readers, our website's visitors and ourselves has too often resulted in ugly, nasty or meaningless dialogue," wrote editor Bob Crider.

It has suspended its comments for the time being and will have a new system in place by July. While the news organization recognizes that not demanding registration encourages debate involvement and provides page views, it has concluded that too many are saying things they wouldn't dare if identified.

What do you think?

The Washington Post has acknowledged copy-and-paste plagiarism from The Arizona Republic and suspended a Pulitzer-winning reporter for three months for publishing other's material as her own.

Sari Horwitz, a veteran investigative reporter, was suspended following stories on legal proceedings against Jared Lee Loughner, indicted on dozens of charges in the recent Tucson shootings of a Congresswoman and a state judge, among others.

The Post was alerted to the plagiarism by The Republic this week and took little time to act. It determined that two paragraphs from one story and 10 from another first appeared in The Republic. They were copied and pasted into a Word document with other notes and later filed the paragraphs for the Web as if they were original.

The news organization has apologized, as has Horwitz, and noted in the online stories that they contained reproduced material.

The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism has issued its eight annual State of the News Media report today. It's a definitive look at American media, with some implications for media outside the U.S. in trends and practices.

The report concludes that, with the exception of newspapers, media operated better in 2010 than in 2009 on many frontiers. Some new business models began to blossom, for instance.
But the report says that the problems aren't involving audiences or even the new models.

"It may be that in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own destiny," the executive summary of the report concludes. New intermediaries are adding layers to the relationship between consumers and advertisers, whether they are software manufacturers or platform creators, and their share of the revenue and data pose new challenges.

Among major trends: executives from outside, some willingness to pay, untapped local news opportunities, a new media economy of smaller entities,  and assistance to media via the car bailout.

The report looks at newspapers, online, television networks, cable television, ethnic and alternative press, magazines, audio and some special reports on, among other things, international newspaper  economics and the online experiments in Seattle.

It appears impartiality at Sports Illustrated involves nothing to cheer about.
This week its NASCAR reporter says he lost his freelance job for applauding at the Daytona 500 last weekend in the press box. Tom Bowles displayed his emotions and SI.com displayed its tough ethics code.
SI.com, owned by Time Inc., is implying there was more to this dismissal than one episode, so it is important to bear that in mind in assessing the departure. But Bowles believes he'd still be at SI.com were it not for five seconds of clapping.
No matter that the race itself was exceptionally poignant (the youngest-ever winner in a record-filled race), it marked what Bowles calls his first and last claps for the sports site.
He was unsettled by the news and took to the site where SI.com discovered him five years earlier, Frontstretch.com, to explain himself.
We are all inherently biased, Bowles argues, and the test of impartiality should be what you create as journalism. "I understand the importance of impartiality in reporting," he wrote. "But last time I checked, where you’re supposed to be judged is whether that actually shows up on paper."
He argues the traditional media do not understand how the game has changed.
"Turns out the modern, professional media is ignorant of a changing culture beyond their control, one where 'just the facts, ma’am' is increasingly replaced with the instant gratification of 'just the facts, ma’am… and here’s how I think those facts should get interpreted. What do you think?' It’s a place where the 'official' media claim to follow the rules, then give us their opinion seconds afterwards on verified Twitter accounts while hanging 'off the record' with the athletes they cover during the week," he wrote.
What are your thoughts on this?

The British Broadcasting Corp., long a strong leader in online journalism, has issued new guidelines for its employees that take the concept of linking to a new level.

The BBC says linking is essential to good journalism --- but not just links to any place. It wants its journalists to look beyond the usual for relevant links, for explanatory and contextual links, and not just to home pages or story pages (except when that story page is a primary source).

Paul Bradshaw of the Online Journalism Blog praises the new guides as a positive step. The guides are below, posted earlier by The Guardian of London.