Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE:GCI), the nation”™s largest newspaper chain, has terminated the online comment sections for most of its news sites due to a lack of staff to moderate the readers”™ input.
According to a Poynter report, the majority of the company”™s approximately 200 dailies will no longer enable comments to be printed directly to their websites. The company has laid off hundreds of workers in recent months and acknowledged that it no longer has the staffing capacity available to ensure the readers”™ comments are suitable for publication.
“While we continue to believe in the importance of comments, we had to make the hard choice to move away from the space due to changes in staffing and the time investment necessary to bring you a safe, moderated and productive discussion space,” said the company in a statement reads.
A few Gannett outlets ”“ most notably the Detroit Free Press, The Arizona Republic and The Cincinnati Enquirer ”“ will still offer an online comments feature on their websites. Locally, the company publishes The Journal News, the Poughkeepsie Journal and the Times Herald-Record, while its sole Connecticut outlet is the Norwich Bulletin.
