Changes on the Column

Last week, NPR began a new social media community. It will give you a chance to participate more fully in NPR's journalism, and allow you to comment on every NPR story posted on the web. It presents an opportunity for all parts of the NPR community to talk to each other and offer story ideas, comments and expertise.

I applaud the effort because it encourages transparency and accountability -- two things that can only make journalism better. It's bound to have bugs at first, so be patient.

There are a few major changes for this site if you want to comment in the future:

1. You will now have to register and create a public profile to participate in comment threads. Comments will be automatically posted. Previously, we moderated comments. We still ask that you follow the guidelines of good behavior.

2.Comments for blog posts (except the music blogs) will close after 7 days. All posts previous to the implementation of the new system will be permanently closed to comments, although the comments themselves will remain visible.

You can read a little bit more about NPR's philosophy in this post.

Here are some of the benefits:
1. All users will be able to "recommend" stories.

2. Comments by users may be featured on the NPR home page and in the inset column of story pages.

3. Users will also be able to participate in the moderation of site commenting through the "report abuse" links associated with user content

4. Registered users will be able to connect with NPR.org staff and other users through their public profiles and the community home page.

You might want to read NPR's multimedia editorial director Dick Meyer's blog post on NPR.org's social media changes:

To register.

For more information on community guidelines.

12:52 PM ET | 10- 3-2008 | permalink

comments | | e-mail