Comment is Free: better than paying for it…
The Guardian’s Comment is Free has its down-sides, but I’m beginning to think it’s the future of journalism, not just a token nod towards blogging culture.
The reason is that the quality of the comments is at times so high that it can be more interesting than the article itself. Take this post on ‘What is Democracy…’, and this sage comment by Wessex:
Politics, as dynamic as it is, can always be relied upon for one thing: it doesn’t work very well. This is true of all systems of governance, throughout every epoch of history. The only societies that have escaped the multifarious clutches of political ineptitude are fictitious, like Camelot, or the Smurfs.
All journalism is biased, and every journalist has an agenda, from the Guardian to the Express to the smallest local rag. The problem with all news and commentary is that the art of journalism is to put across a point of view, normally reflecting the underlying agenda, but without acknowledging it. When you read an article in The Times about how wonderful Sky is, we all know that Murdoch is behind the scenes, but the paper doesn’t actually announciate this for the reader.
By allowing (registered) users to comment on stories, and for these comments to build up a debate of their own, the article is in effect ‘moderated’ by the readership. Take this article on how ‘Mass Medication with Omega 3 would wipe out global fish stocks’ by the otherwise reliable George Monbiot. What seemed like a sensible article was straight away punctured by dougyoung:
Problem with this article is that someone hasn’t done their research. Check out the omega 3 and omega 6 contents in grass-fed (not grain fed, nor grain-finished) meat – wild or farmed.
Of course, comments aren’t, as I’ve already banged on about enough, that great a way of having a debate, but it’s still a great start. Being able to link straight to comments would be a simple and useful improvement to elevate the status of comments to the point where you could link directly to them.
Still, I’m rapidly becoming a convert to these articles over their parents at Guardian Unlimited.
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2 Aliza Churchill said: (on June 14th, 2007)
This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”