I’m not at all surprised she’d take this stance – most reporters seem to feel this way because (I theorize, anyway), they have to put their names on everything they write and wish everyone who attacked their work had to do the same. It’s understandable, but in a lot of ways also very hypocritical.

Journalists want whistle-blowers to rat out government, friends and bosses and live for meaty quotes sharing unpopular or even dangerous points of view. We’ll also usually be happy to let you express those opinions anonymously — just so long as we get to put our bylines on them. We want to serve as a community hub and “voice of the people”, but only want to allow certain opinions to be heard.

The commenters on the story note readers appreciate knowing who is saying what and many acknowledge that it probably would improve the tenor of comments – but they also know it will cut back on dialogue at large (and not always the bad kind). Here’s a comment from a user named RVA123:

There are some risks with requiring names on Cleve.com forums: Though you may be able to ultimately verify authenticity, creating and posting false names will still be too easy for motivated trolls. It probably reduces participation – - which can be perceived as a good thing if it reduces irresponsible posts written solely to drive a negative reaction, and a bad thing if it kills your conversations (and a potential revenue stream for the site) altogether.

Several other commenters note they’d be less likely to share opinions under their real names because they don’t want their bosses and neighbors to know their political leanings, what they watch on TV, where they live or what they REALLY think of their jobs. It isn’t that they have something to hide or have such outrageous opinions they’d never want their names attached – they just want the modicum of privacy they feel the Internet has provided in the last decade or so.

So is less conversation really what we want? Is it better if we have fewer opinions so long as they’re all bylined and well thought-out? From the reactions I hear in my own newsroom every day, I’d say it’s an overwhelming opinion that yes, that’s exactly what we want.

I don’t like being in the position of defending the sort of toxic, anonymous comments that currently permeate news sites, but I believe we as an industry are clinging to an outdated model of what it means to allow the community to have its say. We think that by printing a handful of letters to the editor we are responsibly letting readers have a say because they put their names on those letters. Never mind that those letters usually don’t represent an entire generation of readers – one that tends to do most opinion-sharing online using social media – and are overwhelmingly submitted by white writers.

Aside from any demographic arguments that could be made (and I’d love more and better data if anyone has it), I know how I feel about what I read. My local letters to the editor regularly seem to me to be written by people who aren’t my age and don’t have much in common with my way of life, so I don’t consult them to find out real community reaction on the issues I care about and neither do most of my contemporaries. I turn to blogs, Twitter, Facebook and, yes, the comments on the stories themselves, to see what people have to say. There are a lot more of them – and they’re often far more familiar to me.

If news sites were to eliminate anonymous comments, we should consider what kind of reader would be left out in the cold. Not every anonymous commenter is a racist stalker with an axe to grind – so maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

The report was compiled based on a survey of 2,828 bloggers, blog provider statistics and interviews with many key bloggers.

Fun facts from the study:

Bloggers are generally more affluent than the average person

The blogosphere continues to be dominated by male, affluent and educated bloggers

Most bloggers are “hobbyists” and are driven by personal fulfilment rather than financial gain.

The survey found that contrary to popular belief, many bloggers have had professional media experience, with 35% of all respondents having worked in traditional media as a writer, reporter, producer, or on-air personality, and 27% continue to do so.

While bloggers read other blogs they do not consider them a substitute for other news sources and the majority do not consider online media more important than traditional media.

31% don’t think newspapers will survive the next ten years.

The always awesome Paid Content has an excellent analysis by Nic Brisbourne on his version of the future of news. At it’s core – it isn’t anything you haven’t heard before: Better quality writing, investigative journalism and in-depth analysis are a commodity we in the professional news world have going for us, even as news itself is an abundance.

He suggests we should leverage this to reinforce our place in the market – and do so with less cost and without charging for access to the news. He notes the examples of TechCrunch, Pitchfork and Huffington Post leveraging their trusted brands into things they can charge for – and doing so with a low enough overhead to make it with decent online ad rates. It isn’t earth-shattering – but it is at least the most plausible plan I’ve ever heard.

On the flip side – there’s the privately-funded investigative model of journalism that’s still wearing it’s fledgling feathers – but it’s really rocking out. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out  ”Strained by Katrina, a Hospital Faced Deadly Choices” in the NY Times Magazine. The long-form investigative narrative is the sort of journalism we all wish we were doing – and it wasn’t done by the New York Times, for once. The work on this piece was funded by a grant through ProPublica – who worked with the NY Times to get it into print. Could agreements like this be a part of the future for in-depth reporting? If work like this is what comes out of it, I’m sold.

News on News

• Ok, I get it, so maybe you want a more technology-oriented solution? How’s about an iPhone App that Automatically Picks the News You’ll Like ?An RSS reader that builds a custom news network for you based on your reading habits? That sounds like something we should be working with. Even if the reader doesn’t “pick us” to be in an individual’s mix, something like this makes news accessible to those who don’t have the time to find new news sources. Maybe that new source can be you?
• Every online news source has either considered or tried free classifieds, with varying levels of success (mostly bad). Boing Boing asserts that Newspapers can’t make themselves as simple as craigslist – a well-deserved slam on the classified pages of most newspaper sites. There’s a reason why Craigslist works and we may have missed the point in trying (pathetically) to duplicate their effort.
• Did you know The Guardian is the most bookmarked newspaper on delicious? I don’t really know what that says about them, but they must have a lot of news their readers find to be useful – or else they wouldn’t be bookmarking it. Check it out.
• First it was the bloggers, now it’s the tweeters getting into the press boxes. One twittering fan has gotten courtside press credentials at St. John’s – the first of his kind (and probably not the last).

Social Media News

• Breaking News: Social Media Is for Narcissists! To some people (i.e. my parents), it may seem like a no-brainer that my generation (Y, Why?) is full of narcissists in regards to social media. What is interesting is the surveyed groups of (much younger) Gen-Yers understanding that that might not be such a bad thing to really sell yourself in such a competitive world – not only in business, but in life.
• In related news, all that news about teens not being into Twitter may not be right. It isn’t so much that the proportion of teens on Twitter are low, but that the majority of social media users are older simply because the social web is growing up. Twitter – unlike many of the others – actually started with an older group and they’ve had a longer time to adopt it.
• Pat Thornton writes on Poynter about different newspapers’ approach to Twitter use – and how there doesn’t seem to be one right answer for getting a good ROI out of it. Automated accounts sometimes work, personal accounts sometimes don’t – so perhaps variety is the answer? (At Cincinnati.Com, we have both)
• As you know, not everyone is sold on social media’s value – not even all of those marketers and brands out there. As much as some old-school companies might be fighting, the stats say Social Media Resistance Is Fading Fast and adoption rates are soaring.

Cool Tips!!

• If you’re the sort of journo is is doing (or desperately trying) multimedia and online work in several software suites, you might find this collection of software cheat sheets from 10,000 Words helpful. It outlines helpful hints for all sorts of video, audio and web programs.
• And while most of these little hints apply to marketing and advertising types,it might be good to know these Eight Twitter Habits That May Get You Unfollowed or Semi-Followed so you don’t look like a tool on the Internets.

How the Old, the Young and Everyone in Between Uses Social Networks – eMarketer – Great stats on who’s using social media tools by age group. We’ve seen these before, but the numbers seem to change so fast…

• Flickr Photo Download: Facebook vs Twitter – Interesting graphic comparing Facebook and Twitter’s audiences and usage stats.
• twitter.com – Quantcast Audience Profile – I used Twitter as an example, really, but it is fascinating to see the site’s demographics and traffic from Quantcast. You can enter any site here to see Quantcast’s data. You should be familiar with the demos of your own website (or that of your employer) so as to have a better idea of the audience you’re aiming for.
• Twitter and status updating | Pew Internet & American Life Project – The actual Pew study (instead of just blog posts about it) looking at the demographics of those who share their status online across social media tools.
• Facebook’s 276% Growth in 35-54 Year Old Users | iStrategyLabs – It’s an older blog post, but this look at Facebook’s demos even in January showed the onslaught of new users outside the college-age crowd. Fascinating stuff.
• 10 Ways Journalism Schools Are Teaching Social Media – Some are better than others, but journalism schools are mixing social media into their curricula. My own alma mater, Kent State, uses Twitter pretty extensively, but other schools are going very big in their experimentation (see Newsmixer).

• Why journalists should learn to code (and why some shouldn’t bother) :: 10,000 Words – “Those who choose to adhere to long-standing forms of print or broadcast journalism shouldn’t fret, but know that there will come a time when basic coding will become an integral part of a journalist’s duties. It’s better to jump on the bandwagon now than to be left in the dust later on.”
• Seattle ‘P-I’ Sinks Without Print Boost – In their Top 30 Newspaper Sites for March, Editor & Publisher makes the point that online-only newspapers aren’t quite making it with audiences just yet. Do they need print to survive? That remains to be seen.
• How To Increase Your Chances of a Twitter Follow Back | John Chow dot Com – A lot of this is what I would consider no brainers, but worth a quick read anyway. Disregard what he says about a custom Twitter background, though. You don’t have to pay for a professional background to get followers – you can always make your own or use a free one.
• Overview: Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources | Pew Center – This Pew study outlines Americans’ relationships with news, news consumption trends and which media seem to be doing best. Key takeaway: News is still necessary to a lot of Americans…and without online news/blogs, newspapers would be in worse shape than they are right now.

• The 7 Ways to Approach Twitter – Are you an organization? A personal brand? A personal account? All of the above? If you’re debating how you should use Twitter, take a look at these approaches.
• O’Brien: Older generations adopting new technologies faster than young – San Jose Mercury News – This may surprise you: When it comes to listening to music on iPods, blogging, downloading podcasts, joining Facebook, and using Twitter, the over-35 crowd is adopting everything from social media to consumer electronics at a faster rate than their Generation Y (ages 18 to 24) counterparts.
• The newspaper industry just gave away another free meal, er Twitter: do they have any left? « Scobleizer – Very thoughtful post by Scoble on what newspapers let slip through their fingers in the Internet Age – and what is still left to salvage.