AUDIO: A newspaper seeks help on how to handle web comments

Editors at New London, Conn.'s daily newspaper, "The Day," watched as the comments on one of its blogs grew increasingly nasty. The target of the personal attacks was the small southeastern Connecticut's city's schools superintendent, Chris Clouet.

"He has been really hammered by readers during a school controversy here, and much of it has been personal and nasty," says Greg Stone, the paper's recently retired editorial-page editor.

Rather than let the incident go by, the editors and publisher of the paper took a different tack -- they asked Stone to set up a forum to discuss the challenge of how -- or if -- to control the comments which the public appends to news stories and blog posts on its web site. The result: A two-hour discussion among 12 people -- editors, a press lawyer, citizen commentators, a blogger, an academic researcher and Clouet himself, on May 6 in the paper's conference room: "Web Commentary: Capturing its potential while minimizing its damage."

The discussion covered web commentary's potential value and threats to journalism, and explored a variety of technical and editing techniques for managing public posts.

To listen to a two-hour audio streamcast of the event, click on the carat to the left of the bar below, or DOWNLOAD AN MP3 PODCAST for offline listening. The session is introduced by Gary Farrugia, editor/publisher of The Day.  Panelists included (in initial speaking order):  Clouet; Bill Densmore, director, the New England News Forum at UMass Amherst; Robert Bertsche, partner, Prince, Lobel & Tye, Boston; and Marcel Dufresne, journalism ethics professor, University of Connecticut.