People also shared their personal stories on the comment boards and were often met with kindness and encouragement. I don’t see a reason to shut that down.

“A team of staffers on the print and digital sides will read the letters, choosing the ones with the most interesting and challenging ideas.” That’s likely to turn into a series of short posts about how wise the authors of the articles are rather than some interesting critiques and defenses.

I agree, esp re: pagecount. For a few years now, I can barely tell what in WIRED is an ad, and what is actually an article or piece of substance. It all looks the same, or perhaps I should say, wildly varied in that there’s no clear distinction. I won’t be visiting WIRED under a paywall.

We need all kinds of voices to spur imagination and consider ideas that are “freakish” now, but might be the way of the future; lots of cultural prophets are shamed and verbally abused, because their perspective is uncomfortable. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be available.

I think comment boards can be springboards for ideas whose time has come.
More than once I have read hilarious or bizarre POV’s on comment boards become a comedy joke on late night TV a few days later.
Doesn’t make for elegant journalism.
But it sure lets one put their finger on the pulse of America.

Judging by what’s already been published, it’s 99% stuff agreeing with them.

Since opening their “letters” section, they’ve posted about six letters; out of those, all but one are positive and in agreement with their viewpoints, except one which is mostly positive and just offers some minor quibbles. Make no mistake: The Atlantic’s tactics here are to just make sure that what “dialogue” there is makes no significant criticisms of its articles.

Probably like NYT “picks.” Do these new sources understand that are becoming a monolithic wall of redundancy?

The Atlantic attracted a good range of commenters. Surely there is a good combination of an algorithmic way of automatically sorting out the worst comments, relying on reader’s flags, and hiring moderators. The Atlantic with a raucous democratic discussion going on is far, far better than The Atlantic without one.

You understand that Breitbart is an explicitly right wing news site right? The issue is that outlets like the Atlantic and NYTimes pretend at being unbiased journalism when they’re just boosters for the left.
Outfits like the Nation are at least honest about whose side they’re on. And interestingly have much more honest journalism.

Do you have a point you’re tryinf to articulate?

Translation “no you are”.
This is the modern left people.

That’s because they don’t want anyone to undermine their manufactured news. The whole organization was founded from a guy who got famous for making up fake new stories…

I do everything I can to be part of the problem. Unlike you compliant #fakeamericans that just nod and believe what you’re told.

I know. Just look at you now…

So I guess you are part of the problem in the US.

The leftist borg? The ‘borg’ more resembles the GOP. The GOP lawmakers often vote against their own beliefs because they have to vote as their ‘leader’ dictates or they face ostracization. The Dems tend to split more often, which makes me think they tend to think for themselves more.

I imagine if you watch FOX News, then I understand why you would think that way.

Multiple non-print, non-broadcast sites have closed their comments over the last 5-6 years. Vice’s Motherboard closed theirs, as has Recode, Mic and The Daily Dot.

But to bring nuance to this, I can understand that the focus by these sites is directed to reporting and opining without getting embroiled in comments with people who they’ll never meet. mostly don’t live anywhere near and won’t come at the story with nuance. The discussion part is being outsourced to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc.

Brietbart actively deletes and blocks “left-wing” comments, no matter how innocuous.

Its worse. They literally reframe disagreement as “harassment” their fragile little world can’t stand up to the mildest criticism. And because of that it’s crumbling around them. Not all of them are taking it well either. Look at the weirdo Lolly that commented above for a good example.

Haha. “Waaaah. People say things that disagree with me on the Internet!!” Must suck having all that impotent rage bottled up
Inside you loser. And yes. We’re taking everything from losers like you. Everything. You’re the very definition of a brain dead leftist moron. And your time is over. And you know it.