Reading through the latest, revamped issue of Marketing Week (which looks great btw), I was puzzled and slightly distracted by the constant quoting of “your comments from marketingweek.co.uk”.
My question is this:
Is there a place for reader comments in print publications that were originally made somewhere specific online?
To be fair, it’s not just Marketing Week that does this. And they certainly aren’t the first. But it still does strike me as rather odd.
Is it just lazy journalism? Don’t we lack the context? Isn’t the whole point about the comments to engage and create discussion?
So I wonder why publications do it. Is it to try and increase traffic to the website and encourage readers to go online? Is the aim to give additional ‘reader views’ on the topics being discussed?
I imagine the truth is probably somewhere between the two. But to me it just demonstrates the problems that print publications currently face. I’m all for user generated content, but isn’t this just trying to fit a square peg into a round hole?
We’ve always had reader letters, but even these now seem out of place with the immediacy of the internet. The most frustrating thing is that, if one of the ‘comments from the website’ makes you want to add your own thoughts, you are then forced to go and dig out the original article or post on the site (which is probably now pretty old due to print deadlines etc.) and then add your 2p-worth.
Am I being unfair? Or is this just another nail in the coffin for printed media?