This research is designed to identify how the largest 100 newspapers in the United States collect and manage readers’ responses to news stories and blogs featured on their Web sites. Our goal is to determine which practices are most commonly used or recommended, and develop strategies that help newsrooms engage readers, share useful information and address inappropriate comments or other abuses.

The top 100 papers used in this study were identified through circulation figures cited on www.newspapers.com. To complete the research, the data collector registered on news sites (when required) and submitted comments to articles as well as blogs using the Internet during business hours, Monday through Friday. This research was completed during July, August and September of 2008. Comments submitted were all neutral, such as “thank you for this article,” “interesting—thanks,” or a similar sentiment. In all, 89 out of the 100 news sites had user comments on articles and 94 had user comments on blogs