There are many reasons why I didn't go into teaching elementary school: my general dislike of math, the early mornings (web editors work from about 11-7 or 8 or 9 most days, fyi), that weird peanut butter and jelly + chicken nuggets + milk smell that lingers in the cafeteria, the crying children, dealing with runny noses and all manner of other bodily fluids (that was also a big strike against going into medicine), and the idea of settling fights between children who use name-calling and fib-telling as their weapons of choice.

Please don't misunderstand me, I have great respect for those who do go into education. I had wonderful teachers in elementary school in Schenectady and middle and high school in Burnt Hills and at Boston U. My middle sister is studying to become a guidance counselor, my youngest sister is getting her degree in elementary education and my mom works at an elementary school in Schenectady.

But, it's just not for me.

Sadly for me, the hours I spend each week moderating pissing matches between our online commenter, deleting comments that contain name calling, coarse language and much worse all feels a bit too much like refereeing the sandbox.

This was a particularly tough week for me... many commenters were driving me crazy. Crass, insensitive, inappropriate comments were flowing onto our website faster than I could keep up with them. The last thing I did almost every night was delete a comment and by the time I woke up the next day, there were more that needed to go.

At their best, story commenters provide thoughtful commentary and counterpoints. They often alert readers and reporters to additional information on stories or mistakes and, in doing so, enhance the final product of the story. The comment section also offers a forum to mourn public tragedies.

For instance, the tragic death of Eleanor Adams last month affected the entire community, not just her family and friends. In the comments on that story community members had a chance to express their grief:

TrueSaratogian wrote on Sep 30, 2010 9:00 PM:

" Our prayers now need to be with Ellie's family during this difficult time. "

judy926 wrote on Sep 29, 2010 11:33 PM:

" Our Condolences To Eleanor's Family And Friends. May She Rest In Peace. "

And then there's the less productive side of commenting.

Last month I had to close commenting on a story from 2007 about a foiled heroin sale. Two people were using the story to discuss the finer points of packaging heroin for sale and slinging vulgarities at each other. This is the second years-old story I've had to close comments on recently.

Also last month, I deleted several entries from one user who was calling the 15-year-old victim of a sex crime a "whore" and a "pig."

Remember the trial of kidnapper Victor Hernandez Perez last spring? A comment had to be removed from a story I wrote about that trial because someone with a personal grudge decided to write that the victim had it coming to her. As though her brutal assault, kidnapping and attempted rape was somehow karmic.

On a recent story about a man charged with beating and killing a Chihuahua a commenter suggested that the dog "had it coming" for being small and yappy.

Also from the deleted files: A comment on a story about Sept. 11 which linked to an online video about making a homemade bomb.

It doesn't inspire much confidence in humanity.

We're now a little more than a week away from midterm elections. Your mailbox is probably full of political fliers, your answering machine blinking from robocalls and tv commercial breaks seem like one long political ad. Also full: the comments section under every political story.

I get it, people need a place to express their opinions. But the vulgarity, the name calling, the UNBELIEVABLY IRRITATING USE OF ALL CAPS... it's just not necessary.

Calling each other "wackjob teabaggers" "morons" "retard" "stooges" "dimwit" and, the most frequently used insult: "f***ing idiot"... none of it adds much to the conversation. What's the point?

When I signed on for the Online Editor position, I knew moderating comments would be a significant responsibility of mine, but I don't want to do it passively. I don't want to simply wait in dread for yet another offensive or inappropriate comment to be posted.

In the coming weeks I want to review the rules we have for commenting and adjust them to be more effective, and I'd like your input.

Do the comments under stories keep you coming back or keep you away?

Right now we require registration, but almost no commenters use their actual names... should that be changed?

We rely heavily on readers to use the "report abuse" button to alert staff to inappropriate content, but I don't think it is used nearly enough. When someone hits report abuse, they are asked to fill in their e-mail address and a reason for reporting abuse, an e-mail is then sent to me, Managing Editor Barbara Lombardo and Copy Editor Kellen Reill (who works nights and weekends). From there any of us can review the comment and choose whether or not to remove it. Since I am rarely away from my blackberry, more often than not I am the one who does the removing. The system is far from fool-proof. Many offensive comments are not reported and although I check story comments every day for anything unacceptable -- several dozen times Monday through Friday and at least once daily on weekends -- I cannot always keep up with the round-the-clock commenting.

Our sister paper, the Troy Record, has a pre-approval system for commenting. Far fewer comments are actually posted (their most commented story right now has 11 comments, ours has 52), I'm not sure if that is because fewer people offer comment or if very few make it past their editors' scrutiny.

Moving to a pre-approval system would be extremely labor-intensive for our already-strapped staff and I believe would result in delays of several hours before comments posted. The delays would eliminate much of the back-and-forth between commenters that currently exists (some of which is thoughtful and productive, but much of which devolves into angry name-calling and hating). Would that be a better situation or a worse one?

I can see positives and negatives, I'm really not leaning toward either option.

I'm looking closely at what the newspaper websites in our region are doing and at the trends around the country for guidance. For instance, the Times Union doesn't seem to allow commenting under any news stories, rather readers are referred to a relevant blog where they can post comments. I like that idea, but I'm not sure if it could translate to the Saratogian. The Post-Star posts comments to a tab behind the story and the rules for commenting are displayed prominently in a large red box on top of the comments. They also pre-approve comments.

Three newspapers in Maine shut down their comments sections for more than a day last week citing " vile, crude, insensitive an vicious postings." The papers then reopened commenting using a monitoring system called IntenseDebate. Readers can give comments a thumbs up or down and then sort comments by their rating.

Our Rules for Commenting appear only after a user has signed in. Then they are as follows:

We encourage your feedback and dialog. We ask you to follow a few simple guidelines when commenting on stories on saratogian.com.
1) Please post responsibly.
2) Be polite.
3) Don't hate.
4) If you object to someone's post, use the "Report Abuse" button and we'll review it.
5) Users who don't play by the rules will be blocked and won't be allowed to participate.
6) Self-promotion of businesses or advertisements of anything for sale are not permitted.

I think they need revamping. What rules would you suggest?

How can I keep the discourse civil and productive without stifling debate or feeling like a kindergarten teacher?

It's a classic Hollywood scene straight out of a black and white court room drama: A gaggle of reporters rushing to the phone booths to dial into their newsroom and dictate a story over the line.

In an era of instant communication, I'm finding this scenario still occurs - at least in our newsroom.

Yesterday provided two examples: The first occurred when a robber struck the Saratoga National Bank & Trust Company branch on West Avenue in Saratoga Springs.

The report came over the police scanner and immediately caught the ear of both myself and reporter Emily Donohue, who quickly assembled her gear and was out the door while I typed up early details to get onto our site and then tweet and post to Facebook. 

Almost immediately after she left, the scanner reports indicated that the suspect had been apprehended. I updated the story online. Only a short time later, Emily called in with her first reports from the scene, which I took down and used to update the story a third time. She called in more details from the scene a short time after that, and the story was updated again, as well as sent out via e-mail blast.

This was the exact method we employed in late May, when the very same bank was robbed. Reporter Paul Post was on the scene soon after the May 24 robbery occurred and phoning in a series of several updates, which he dictated to me. We generated the most thorough coverage of the robbery after it happened, including a Google map that showed the area around the bank police had initially searched for the suspect, and later that day a video of the bank president describing the incident. (The suspect in that incident initially got away, but turned himself in to city police the following day.)

The second example yesterday happened around 7 p.m. Emily was on her way to a meeting in Malta when she came across an accident on Route 9 near Cherry Choke Road (near the Northway Exit 13 interchange). She phoned in to alert us to the accident and informed us she would get the details on it but miss her meeting as a result.

I wrote a quick sentence or two, added a Google map, and by the time that was set Emily had called in with first details, and the story was updated. Another phone call provided more info, and then I received a text message that she had e-mailed some photos. I downloaded one, cropped it, and published it with the story.

Phone booths are extinct, but even if armed with laptops or the latest mobile gadgets, I think there's room for this method of news gathering/dissemination in the modern news ecosystem. The reporter can phone in information to an editor back in the office and put the onus on them to type something coherent and publish it to the web (and blast out via social networking tools). This frees the reporter up to gather more details for another phone update.

Patrick from the City Desk here with an interesting item out of New Jersey.

Freehold InJersey, a community blog run by the Asbury Park Press (a Gannett publication) has set up a newsroom in the middle of Zebu Forno Cafe, a local coffee shop. Patrons will be able to dish with reporters and editors while enjoying a saucer of their favorite hot caffeinated beverage.

What do you think of this partnership? Would you take the time to chat with a Saratogian reporter working out of Uncommon Grounds, Saratoga Coffee Brewers or any other shop or cafe in town?

I like the idea of spending one day a week filing stories from a cafe, especially if free caffeine is part of the partnership! Let us know what you think!

Are you familiar with the Wayback Machine? Bookmark it, now. Trust me, you'll love it.



It's a function (honestly, the only one I've ever used) of Archive.org. The site archives websites and then allows users to type in a web address and access the page in the past.
Nostalgic about facebook's earlier incarnations, say circa 2004? Type it in and travel down memory lane. Was the site you need to visit taken down, no problem Archive.org probably saved it.

I used the wayback machine this weekend to access the former homepage of Hamilton University for this story. The (fake) college's website was taken down a few years ago, but with this (free! no signing up required!) service I traveled back in time and saw the online claims they were making years ago.

The site's not perfect, some of the links it provides are dead. But, when it works it's awesome.

... into the digital age

It's regatta weekend in Saratoga Springs and sports reporter Stan Hudy w/ the help of his wife Reda and Web editor Steve Shoe are going all out to bring readers the latest results from the Scholastic Rowing Association of America National Championship Regatta.

They've been planning this coverage for months and it's pretty amazing. Here's what we've got:

-- Twitter updates with results from each race on the @saratogian_spts feed
-- A live video feed so fans near and far can watch the action as it happens
-- The video feed also features a live chat so viewers can talk to Hudy & Shoe about the races and the coverage
-- Hudy's also been doing a little blogging about the event
-- And, of course, we've got our traditional written coverage online and in print
-- Oh, don't miss this it's my favorite part of our coverage: Rowing for Dummies. I love a good diagram and this one uses another newish-to-us online tool -- Scribd. That website allows us to upload a pdf file and embed it inside a story.

Here's the set-up at the Regatta, that's Hudy keeping cool under the umbrella
(photo by Steve Shoe)


We're pulling out all the stops for crew coverage this weekend, I hope you'll check it out, even if you don't know anything about rowing. I think the Hudy/Shoe coverage of this event, really exemplify what we're trying to do with our Ben Franklin project. We want our coverage of everything, from regattas to robberies, to be comprehensive, creative and meet our readers' needs.

I tried to find a Ben Franklin quote about boats that might fit... here's what I got:
"Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore."
The Saratogian might be a relatively little boat, but we're still venturing as far out into the digital age as we can get. Are you coming along for the ride?


-- Emily

A little... if everyone else helps me.

The plan for the Saratogian's latest blog (which will be shared by all the news reporters and editors) is to share with you, our readers, the steps we are taking toward bringing our newsroom into the future.

This week we embarked on a new endeavor as a newsroom, the Ben Franklin Project, (the brainchild of our parent company's new CEO, John Paton) that we hope will bring our readers into the reporting process.

(i have no idea what this cartoon is about... but it makes me laugh)

The basic gist of the project is this: rather than use the (expensive) proprietary software like Atex, Quark, Photoshop etc. etc. etc. we currently use to put the paper together everyday, we will put out our July 4 edition using only free tools available online. Additionally, rather than judge our readers' interest in stories after the fact, by the number of hits it gets online or comments/letters to the editor/phone calls it generates, we will go the readers first and see what you want us to report on.

We're still working out exactly how this is going to happen (we've attended several hours of brainstorming meetings this week) but two of our sister papers — a daily, The News-Herald in Lake County, Ohio, and a weekly, Montgomery Media’s Perkasie News-Herald — already pulled it off. (One component of their project was using a free service to host the paper's website for one day, here's what that looked like for The New-Herald)

We know that the way people get their news today is a lot different than it was even a few years ago, let alone in Ben Franklin's day. Our recent forays into twitter (follow us: @saratogian_news and @saratogian_spts and @BFranklinTweets) and facebook are only the beginning of what we hope is a cultural shift toward "digital first" journalism.

The days of spending hours reporting and then sitting down to write a definitive story that readers will see for the first time the next morning when a paperboy throws it onto their front steps are looooong gone. We're still going to do good reporting, we're still going to take pride in our writing and photography and we're still putting out a print product... but we're also focused on getting the news out there as it happens. Our coverage will adjust as the story changes throughout the day.

The "digital first" mantra is also intended to impact the way we do our reporting and what we report on. We want to hear from you (well, not you, anonymous blogger with multiple personalities... I've heard enough), we want to know what issues are important to you and what stories you'd like us to tell.

We're also using new tools to do that reporting. Reporters now carry Flip cams to every story in addition to the good ol' pen and paper. This week Mareesa Nicosia used Skype — a free, online video chat service — to conduct an interview with someone in Africa (more on that in a later post...)

Do you have ideas about what we should be covering? Thoughts on how we can do a better job to get news to you throughout the day? Any tools we should be using to do a better job reporting?

Let us know.

— Emily