Of course the paradise was lost for the oppressing media. Long live the internet.
"Comments from some readers, our research shows, can significantly distort what other readers think was reported in the first place"
Research would show that your lies significantly distort what readers think in the first place.
"But as they say, the genie is out of the bottle."
You would happily undo this whole internet thingie, wouldn't you?
This guy just lauded the internet as a bastion of debate, and then in the same breath bemoaned the fact that the dirty proles get to talk back.
It's not a "debate" if other people don't get a say, it's propaganda...
Civility does not mean blindly agreeing. It means just that: acting civil.
However, what he does argue against is rudeness and insults. Essentially, not debating, but slinging mud.
"Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought."
Simply put, you can act civil even if you disagree. This does provide value. However, when that civility is removed, the results are polarizing.
If you can't see the benefits of civil debate, you are an idiot.
Just to be clear, I did not really mean this:
"If you can't see the benefits of civil debate, you are an idiot."
It was intended to have a tone completely different from the rest of the comment. And so, despite the rest of the comment being sound, this one sentence caused a rift.
So, I did not add it to insult. I added it to make a point, and you highlighted that point so much better than you realized.
That being said, if you can't handle being called an idiot on the internet, you unfortunately probably are an idiot (on the internet).
Forget about what you think of the Times or any other major media outlet for a moment and just focus on the point of the article and you'll see the author makes some great points.
Supposing for a moment that the NYT and other outlets are trustworthy, doing a good journalistic job, etc. This research shows that people who write ignorant comments, especially if they're written in a tone not much different than your own right now to be honest, can distort what others think of the information presented. This is not a good thing. The people who comment based on emotion rather than reason are able to sway people into not only believing something potentially wrong but such comments also take otherwise thoughtful people and get them acting and thinking based on emotion rather than reason.
If you yourself were to make some very good point about topic X that was well-researched and could potentially help to inform and make many peoples' lives better but then some asshole contrarian comes along and makes some emotional appeal that sways people in the opposite direction. How incredibly frustrated would you feel knowing that a potentially enlightening conversation could have ensued but now it's just a rat's nest of ignorance like YouTube?
I don't know how you turned this into a statement against media outlets but this is actually something that applies broadly and is not just harmful for the Times or the other "evil" media outlets.