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The Disappearing News Media Comment Sections

Published: June 20, 2022, 9:30 a.m.

As the former director of community for\xa0HuffPost, where he led the management of an active, massive comment section,\xa0Tim McDonald\xa0has had a unique vantage point to the mass closure of news media comment sections. Patrick and Tim go in depth on that topic on this episode.

Toward the end, Tim shares what he believes will be his greatest community ROI story: He has stage IV colon cancer and is in need of a liver donor and\xa0could get a lot closer with your help.\xa0 Please visit\xa0TimsLiver.com\xa0for more info.

Plus:

Why Tim believes he doesn\u2019t make a good soccer referee \u2013 or content moderator
Keeping track of your community wins \u2013 both qualitative and quantitative
Leveraging relationships with influential community members to get your message across, rather than being the face of the community yourself

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If you enjoy our show, please know that it\u2019s only possible with the generous support of our sponsor:\xa0Hivebrite, the community engagement platform.

Big Quotes

You can\u2019t make everyone happy in moderation (10:56):\xa0\u201cI would hate it when there was a close call [as a soccer referee] because I knew in my head what the call was but I knew if I looked at it objectively from one team\u2019s viewpoint and from the other team\u2019s viewpoint, half were going to be happy with me, half were going to be upset with me, and I wanted to make everybody happy. You can\u2019t do that in comment moderation, and you can\u2019t do that being a referee.\u201d \u2013@tamcdonald

Allowing influential members to do the talking (11:34):\xa0\u201cI didn\u2019t need to get into the [HuffPost] community and be the face of the community. I could just have relationships with about a dozen of our community members who were very well respected and let them do the talking. But in exchange, I would take phone calls from them at home, at night, on the weekends. I would listen to them, I would understand what they were going through, but I would also be able to convey what, from a company standpoint, we were trying to achieve. When I did that, they started understanding.\u201d \u2013@tamcdonald

If we aren\u2019t going to invest in it, why spend so much effort? (19:08):\xa0\u201cMy very last day [at HuffPost was] when we pushed the button and [switched to Facebook Comments]. Everybody looked at me like I was crazy, but I just told everybody, \u2018I\u2019ve come up with solutions. I\u2019ve come up with options. Nobody wants to pay for this. If we can\u2019t invest in it, and we\u2019re not willing to invest in it, and we\u2019re not going to generate any revenue off of it, why are we supporting it?\u2019 That was the end of it. Obviously, they still had comments. They still do have comments, but it\u2019s nothing to what it was back when I was at HuffPost.\u201d \u2013@tamcdonald

Document your community wins (22:53):\xa0\u201cThe subscriber growth of The New York Times is often cited \u2026 by media folks and executives as an example of the D2C model, but I think people would do well to remember that The New York Times never closed their comments. \u2026 People want that success of, \u2018Look at all the people they have paying for news,\u2019 but they don\u2019t necessarily want to do that work that is moderating comments for 20 years to build a section that is befitting of The New York Times.\u201d \u2013@patrickokeefe

Document your community wins (30:02):\xa0\u201cWe say [document your wins], but we don\u2019t necessarily always talk about the process through which we capture that, and so it fails. \u2026 If it\u2019s easy and it\u2019s comprehensive, then you\u2019re going to do it. Whereas if it\u2019s manual and it\u2019s slow, not only are you not going to do it, but when you don\u2019t do it, you\u2019re going to not be able to access that information as easily.\u201d \u2013@patrickokeefe

Generous giving is the greatest community ROI (34:16):\xa0\u201cWhen I find [a liver] donor through [the communities] I\u2019ve built up over the years, that is going to be the greatest ROI because I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a price that we can put on our lives, and I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a price that we can put on the amount of giving that that would take from another human being.\u201d \u2013@tamcdonald

About Tim McDonald

Tim McDonald\xa0is the community account manager for\xa0HomeRoom.club. He is the former director of community at\xa0HuffPost, founder of My Community Manager, and director of communications for Social Media Club Chicago. Tim works with organizations and individuals who are stuck to get them unstuck. He helps people connect with their voice and stories. He is also a speaker and facilitates workshops.

Recognizing how fear held him back, he has changed his relationship with fear and has used it to get unstuck and end a 17-year marriage, meet his life partner, move to a new city, twice, leave a toxic job, and currently looks at having stage IV metastasized colon cancer as a gift. Tim is in search of a liver donor with surgery planned around September 2022. If you think this could be you, please visit\xa0TimsLiver.com\xa0for more info.