It's kind of unfortunate that there's no easy way to scope the internet down to a smaller group of participants, for small time operations like local news sites.
Local news doesn't want to include audience participation from as far away as another time zone, or another state, but even then, geographic exclusions aren't an entirely correct exclusion criteria, since former residents of a local region may wish to participate from afar, because they still tune into home town news, after moving to new territory.
Real world names freeze out lots of participation, because taking ownership of an "incorrect" (contentious) opinion can have permanent consequences to one's reputation.
The real name and/or social credibility fix, is a blunt force trauma solution, to keep out obnoxious people, and isolate discourse to limited subgroups. But another problem is, even without being obnoxious, non-professional participants frequently go off-topic and off-script.
Pseudonyms almost certainly require painstaking, labor intensive moderation, and a skillful attention devoted to selectively ascribing relevance to conversation.
Most local operations just want to know there's an audience with a pulse, but providing that audience with a platform and a voice is another matter entirely.