• Home
  • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
  • Contact

JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« The Star’s new editorial board has found its footing and its voice
A good cop and a bad crash: Two stories that deserve our attention and reflection »

The Star is overlooking an opportunity to sell a lot of online subscriptions

July 5, 2017 by jimmycsays

There’s no doubt that The Kansas City Star, being a link in the debt-laden McClatchy newspaper chain, is operating under significant financial constraints.

But one area in which a relatively small investment could pay big dividends is online reader comments.

Unfortunately, The Star took steps several years ago that had the effect of discouraging reader comments, and it has never made a serious effort since then to build a workable system. That apparent lack of interest and initiative has had two big, negative impacts.

First, it has made online subscriptions — where the paper’s future seems to lie — less appealing. At this stage, if online subscriptions are not growing by leaps and bounds, The Star is in deeper trouble than it appears. (For the record, I don’t know how The Star is doing in regard to online subscriptions, but I haven’t talked to a lot of people who have signed on.)

Second, The Star’s abdication on reader comments makes the paper less relevant than it would otherwise be. As the community’s single strongest information source, The Star could establish itself — with the hiring of two or three people — as the authoritative moderator of responsible discussion on important community issues. That would not only raise the paper’s much-diminished community profile, it would also attract a lot more online subscriptions.

…It’s not fair to compare The Star or, for that matter, any other American daily with The New York Times, but it’s nevertheless interesting to point out the amazing success The Times has had with its online reader-comment system.

Bassey Etim

The Times began enabling comments 10 years ago. The Times now receives about 12,000 comments per day. Every one of those comments is read and either approved or rejected by a 13-member “community desk” headed by Bassey Etim, who has been with The Times since 2008.

It is not uncommon for a big story to get more than 1,000 comments. Today, for example, the lead story in the online edition — a news analysis speculating about how many casualties there might be in the event of a limited war on the Korean peninsula — has attracted more than 1,000 comments.

(At random, I looked at seven KC Star online stories this afternoon and saw a total of six comments. A majority of the comments — four — were on a Kansas City Royals story.)

By virtue of its comments system, The Times has become the de facto clearinghouse on national discourse. Sometimes I will read scores of comments on a single story and spend much more time on the comments than on the story that generated the comments.

In a 2013 story in The New Yorker magazine, a writer named Maria Konnikova reflected on the psychology of online comments, saying they contribute to the reading experience and prompt many readers to want to engage each other on the topic at hand. She added:

In a phenomenon known as shared reality, our experience of something is affected by whether or not we will share it socially. Take away comments entirely, and you take away some of that shared reality, which is why we often want to share or comment in the first place. We want to believe that others will read and react to our ideas.

**

Now, I have no evidence whatsoever that The Times’ well-oiled comments system has contributed to its amazing success with sale of digital subscriptions — it is up to 1.9 million news subscriptions, after starting at zero in 2011 — but I have to think it has.

It just makes sense to me that many people, when they read other people’s comments, want to chime in, and I think the combination of getting a good news product (which The Star is) and then being able to weigh in on various issues is a powerful marketing combination.

I understand why The Star changed its approach to comments several years ago, banning anonymous comments and requiring that commenters be registered on Facebook. The trolls, particularly those with a racial ax to grind, were overrunning the comments and making them unreadable. (As an example of a horrible comments system, where anonymous comments are not only accepted but encouraged, check out Tony Botello’s local blog.)

All things considered, I think The Star is missing a golden opportunity. Over the last year, under still relatively new publisher Tony Berg, The Star has hired several young reporters and has done a complete and successful makeover of its editorial page. It wouldn’t take much of an investment — maybe $100,000 to $150,000 a year — to establish its own “community desk.” A few good hands could keep the trolls squarely under the bridges and trigger invigorating dialogue on any number of issues.

Consider, for example, how interesting and intellectually stimulating it would be to get a wide variety of local views on the prospect of a single terminal at KCI — or the resolution of Brandon Ellingson case, or Kelsey Ryan’s Sunday story about Kansas City being a “murder capital.”

I tell you, it could enliven and uplift the entire community. And it could sell a lot of online subscriptions.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

3 Responses

  1. on July 6, 2017 at 11:17 am Bill Hirt

    The whole online KC Star experience is becoming worse and worse. The Royals are playing on the west coast. I watched most of the game, but went to bed before the end. Checked the MLB app in the middle of the night and saw they won. Checked the Star app on my phone after 8 am this morning and no game story. Just checked the Star app on my phone now again and no game story. There is a game story on kansascity.com though.

    There is a major inconsistency in Star marketing and online strategy here. They push in the paper (and in an email exchange I had about 2 years with the reader rep about having late stores appear in the paper) about using their apps/online, yet increasingly I find no correlation between what is printed and what is online or in their apps. Several times over the past few days the phone app has offered no more 10-15 stories total. And the top stories of the day in the paper (front page) are most days nowhere to be found in the apps.

    Everything appears to be being done on the cheap which gives the impression the whole McClatchy operation is nearing financial exhaustion.

    Now on the positive, my actual paper delivery has dramatically improve since the first of July which I suspect means a new carrier has assumed our route. I now am getting the paper before 7 am (even on Sunday) when 8 to 9:30 am delivery was becoming routine again.


  2. on July 6, 2017 at 11:40 am John Altevogt

    From a friend on FB “In the proofreader/copy editor gaffe of the decade, the July, 6, 2017 edition of the Kansas City Star Obituaries column sadly informed us of the death of “NAME, NAME”. No mention was made of any pending services”


  3. on July 6, 2017 at 12:04 pm John Altevogt

    Fitz, I personally like the idea of never letting anyone hide behind anonymity. The ability to post could be tied to the person’s digital account. That said, once again The Star is hamstrung by the dinosaurs of the past. Many, many, many people were blocked from commenting when they had the audacity to confront The Star’s psychotic public editor on his various and sundry lies. The first step Mr. Berg should take is to override anyone blocked prior to his tenure at The Star.

    I do disagree however with having comments censored unless they’re disrespectful of another commenter. Faulty ideas are not defeated by forcing them to fester in the darkness, only by confronting them with their irrationality can we move forward. And, if you can’t defeat them logically and rationally, why the hell are you censoring them to begin with? I would argue that both the civil rights movement and the feminist movement pretty much came to a halt when they successfully shouted down voices of dissent.

    Overall, I think you’re correct, allowing people to comment freely would give then a sense of ownership in the paper and bring more people on board. As it is, no one really needs to subscribe given the many ways to skirt paywalls. Another motivator would be to let the subscribers run an ad blocker to eliminate the variety of annoying ads one has to hurdle simply to read a story.



Comments are closed.

  • Pages

    • About me: Jim Fitzpatrick
    • Contact
  • Archives

    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • July 2011
    • June 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 563 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Join 563 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: