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The attitude of two Chicago news sites to comments illustrates some of the differences between new and old media.

At a panel at the AEJMC annual conference on handling offensive comments, there were speakers from the Chicago Tribune newspaper’s website and from the online newspaper ChiTownDailyNews.org.

At the Tribune, registration is required to leave a comment on a story. The site uses a profanity filter with some 700 words to prevent some of the more abusive language.

Aside from that, it largely relies on readers to report abuse on a comment. This alerts a news producer who can either let it go or kill it on the grounds that it is off topic, profane, revealing personal data or for legal reasons. About 10% of comments are killed out of around 24,000 in a week.

The Tribune removes the comment function on stories about rape, missing women and suicide as it fears what people might say.

Over at the ChiTownDailyNews.org, they have a different approach. The three-year old news outlet is a non-profit, online only organisation.  It started without registration, allowing anyone to say what they wanted.

There was one story about Chicago housing that prompted a stream of racist and abusive comments but the Chi Town Daily decided not to remove them after intense editorial debate.

The rationale – the racist comments reveal information about a segment of the community, and deleting them would do a disservice to the community.  It has one rule, taking down comments that have nothing to do with the story.

The site has since introduced registration and this has hit the level of comments. But it introduced registration to bring comments in line with its editorial policy of not allowing anonymous sources. The notion is that information is more valuable with a name attached, even if it is a made up name.

The two approaches highlight the different between old and new media. As an online upstart, The Chi Town Daily does not have a 150-year old brand to protect, whereas the Tribune has to consider its established readership.

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