Berlin-Icthyosaur State Park. Photo: Bob Conrad.

After reading my local paper’s articles online, I often skim down to the comments below the article. It is here where I begin to feel so very unclean.

With the advent of attempts at creating more transparent journalism, many news media outlets allow ordinary folks to comment on their news stories online. I’m not sure why.

The lay public is incredibly misinformed and it is difficult to be truly knowledgeable about the complex issues facing people today. [Edit 10/17/08: Click here for an unrelated but pointed, amusing and sad example of how misinformed we are.] Social psychologist Robert Cialdini calls this “paralysis of analysis.” As information is more readily available, it is more difficult to be critical about how and what we absorb.

What adds insult to injury is when newsrooms don’t talk back after their readers respond. This is where journalists can learn from their PR brethren.

[Edit 10/17/08: The same day of this posting, which was written a week prior to being posted, there was an interesting storm of criticism directed at the local daily, and it was being dealt over Twitter. What happened was the paper posted an endorsement of a political candidate that was viewed with criticism. I even weighed in. One problem, among a few: In moving the article around, the reader responses got deleted, or at least there was the appearance of being deleted, which created further furor -- again, expressed on Twitter. The next day, the paper reposted the comments under the article with an editorial pseudo apology. Ryan commented that "this would have never happened without Twitter."

Also, the following day, I posted another comment to another story, taking to task, once again, the Associated Press, for fear-mongering reporting of dubious sources. A reporter promptly took me to task in the comments section! The point being: Not all's black and white in the world of Bob Conrad. So a partial mea culpa is in order, and a kudos goes out to Steve Timko for his participation. On that order, I've gotten initial approval to interview another employee of the RGJ to discuss this topic directly. But please continue reading to get to what I hope is a larger point on newsroom transparency, one that appears to be changing.]

Embedded into (good) public relations is the notion of symmetrical communications. Past PR engaged in asymmetrical communications. A group or organization transmitted information to a public, and that was considered the chain of communication: me to you. Symmetrical communications takes into account the response from publics. In other words, in order to truly engage publics, and I would add, in order to truly have publics better informed –and conversely, organizations better informed of public views — communications needs to be two way.

Even this isn’t enough. The book Radically Transparent invokes the notion that in order to be truly transparent it is critical that publics are partners in organizations. Dell Computers engages its customers in product development ideas, for example.

Newsrooms, however, are still radically opaque. Here’s why:

1. We don’t really know what goes on in the newsroom, nor should we in many instances. Just as there is a need for ANY organization to conduct at least some parts of its business in private for proprietary — news scoops would fall under this — legal or personnel reasons, newsrooms have valid reasons to be operating behind closed doors. But the opportunity to comment on a news story is really just an extension of the old letter-to-the-editor. It’s containerized – there’s a word-count limit, for example – and it offers nothing up about what goes on behind the scenes of a newsroom.

2. Commenting on news stories does little to elevate dialogue. One reason is explained above – people are often ill-informed enough about issues that comments usually detract from news stories and actually contribute to misinformation. Because of diminished critical thinking, comments are too often fraught with conspiracies, name calling, allegation and innuendo.

3. Newsrooms are laissez faire about article comments. My colleague Ryan tells me that in fact, news outlets deliberately take a hands-off approach to their reader comments for legal reasons. The news media doesn’t want to be liable for the libel that is likely to be contained therein.

4. News reporters do not engage readers in dialogue, at least not publicly. This is the most problematic reason for offering up public comments: Reporters are trained to report, not to engage in conversation. It is often the case that when called upon to be accountable for a story, reporters will either clam up or simply say, “Our work speaks for itself.” A next-day ‘correction,’ may run, but the accountability is minimal. It is a rare occurrence that a paper has the guts to come out and boldly say on the front page, “We fucked up” (words that I think should automatically be at the top of the mind of every good public relations spokesperson). Even that is a minimal form of dialogue. It appears even rarer to see a reporter chiming in on the conversation below his or her story. (Who can blame them?)

So it is with public relations that news journalists can once again turn for counsel. Good public relations is all about engaging our various publics in dialogue, listening, giving feedback and, most importantly, acting upon what needs action.

By adopting a truly transparent stance, newsrooms will begin to empower their publics. In doing so, people can begin to be better informed. And hopefully more tolerant.