Comment Is Free: 22
partly because users had fewer such obligations: “They can opt out at any moment, and I can’t,” a
print editor said. “With citizen journalists, it’s all rights and no responsibilities,” a print writer said.
For the journalist, overlapping considerations of honesty, transparency, and trust all related to their
own accountability in an interactive environment. “It works by being honest,” a print editor said.
“What makes people cross is if they think you’re being unfair or dishonest or disingenuous.” An
online editor said: “The barriers are broken down. Users do expect more journalists to step out from
behind articles, defend, and discuss them.”
One simple aspect of being transparent is appending a byline to your work, and anonymity
was one characteristic of UGC that respondents saw as clearly distinguishing those who wrote for
the Guardian from those who merely commented. “Commenters behind a shroud of anonymity
don’t have that responsibility” not to be cruel, an online writer said. “They don’t care. But I can’t do
that.” Indeed, almost all the respondents who mentioned anonymity suggested it was a factor in the
too-often uncivil tone of online discourse. “The anonymity takes some of that responsibility away
for them. It allows them to abuse each other,” an online editor said. “People feel licensed to say
things in content and style that they wouldn’t own if publishing as themselves,” said another.
Although not as prevalent a theme as the others discussed here, a number of respondents
touched on issues related to balance and fairness, highlighted in the questionnaire as a component of
responsibility, as well as credibility. An online journalist cited a need to “consciously signal” efforts
to look at a topic “from different perspectives, partly because immediately following the piece,
you’re going to get loads of perspectives! So if you haven’t even thought about one of them, I think
it undermines your initial attempt.” They saw the website as offering an unparalleled opportunity to
enact CP Scott’s dictum that the paper should be a forum for a diversity of views – including those
not the Guardian’s own. Instead of only people from “a middle class Oxbridge background telling
you what to think or steering your opinion, you’ve got a range of voices,” a print editor said.
Convention