Charging for comments, instead of content
July 13th, 2010Posted by Rachel McAthy in Editors' pick, Online Journalism
A US-based newspaper has announced it will charge readers $1 to comment on articles, in an interesting addition to recent debates surrounding online news revenue streams.
According to a report by the Editors Weblog, the Sun Chronicle will set the fee from tomorrow, with the payment process also meaning the posters name and town will also be published.
The article quotes the Chronicle’s publisher, Oreste D’Arconte, saying the payment has been introduced to “eliminate past excesses that included blatant disregard for our appropriateness guidelines, blind accusations and unsubstantiated allegations”.
But this has drawn some criticisms from those who feel anonymous speech often supports the most honest and open of comments.
