In writing Web Journalism: Practice and Promise of a New Medium several years ago, I described what could be one of the great benefits of the web's ability to bring the journalist and audience more closely together. A “community of interest” might form around a subject that would lift journalism from its single-shot, episodic coverage of an event or topic. This community would sustain a conversation about a topic beyond the normal amount of time that a journalist or publication might devote to it. Then I went a bit further:

This new relationship will have profound effects on the way journalists gather information and make decisions. Readers are likely to become sources of information and lead journalists to new inquiries and stories. They could provide valuable perspective to journalists who are new to a story or not part of the community they cover (two of the major criticism of journalists today), offering points of view that journalists would not normally hear in talking with “official” sources about their stories. The public journalism movement (often called civic journalism), which seeks to involve the community in journalistic decision-making, could be taken to a new level with the Web.

What was being described was an ideal community where those who participated shared an interest in the topic and a respect for other participants in the community. A common value was the recognition that other members of the community would have something of value to contribute. Their contributions might be eventually disagreed with or dismissed, but they should be treated with respect and civility.

This was the ideal, and it does occur at some places on the Internet.

But Michael Kinsley's recent experience has been quite different. Kinsley is the editorial page editor for the Los Angeles Times and a writer and political commentator of the first order. He recently tried to open up the Times' editorial web site to help form such communities of interest, and his experience was anything but ideal. He has devoted his weekly column to his experience. (Here is the link to “Cybercreeps run amok” on the Washington Post web site.)

Cyberspace communities -- and the cyberspace community at large -- often seem to be more energized by rejecting heathens than by embracing soulmates. They love staging inquisitions and anathemas. Having spent a decade working at the devil Microsoft and then at a big "old media" institution, the Los Angeles Times, I am amazed by the hostility that greets any effort to stroll into the clubroom and buy the boys a round of drinks.

Recently at the Times we tried using a Web innovation called "wiki" -- a shared-editing process very much in the cyberian spirit. For two days, thousands of people seemed to be enjoying it. But our e-mail boxes oozed unwelcoming contempt from cyberoids (except for the real innovators of wiki -- the founders of the amazing wikipedia.com -- who were helpful and sympathetic). Then a guerrilla attack in the middle of the night flooded the site with pornography and we had to take it down.

Kinsley's experience is unfortunate and not uncommon.

Several years ago, when I was faculty adviser to DatelineAlabama.com, the news web site of the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama, I discovered that, despite my efforts to build staff camaraderie to get us through difficult situations, there was an underground email exchange among the staff that was uncivil and occasionally vicious. I was surprised because I thought a shared sense of purpose to make the web site work would pervade the individuals on the staff and help them set aside their egos for the common good.

That had not happened, and even when I ordered the exchanges to cease, they did not. It was simply too much fun, I suppose, to rip those people you don't particularly care about.

What these experiences point to is the need for a monitor for the communities of interest. They ought to be able to work by themselves, but those instances are rare. Someone has to be in charge to make sure the shared values of the the group are respected by the individuals.

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