news-record.com

Yesterday morning our online folks published a four-paragraph item about a former N.C. A&T State University administrator who is a finalist for the presidency of Morgan State University. We didn't report the story -- the Virginian-Pilot did. We simply posted the wire version onto the Web site.

No controversy to it whatsoever.

At least that's what I thought.

The first commenter wondered why we had published the item, suggesting it was because we give preferential treatment to A&T over the other colleges and universities in town.

I responded that we published it because "she used to work in Greensboro, held a high-position at a public institution and there are people here who know her."

And we were off. We're at 40 comments and counting and more than 1,600 page views.

The comments and traffic are nice, but the best part about it is that two other commenters attempted to test the hypothesis that our coverage of A&T is out of balance.

A comment from one: I found 99 pages of results for UNCG and 93 pages of results for NC A&T. This of course is highly unscientific and not an accurate representation of N&R's reporting, as the mention of either in these comments (like I just did) would qualify this page as a result. This being said, the number of results of articles (including sports), editorials, comments, etc. for UNCG are greater than the number of results for A&T, yet not different enough to suggest a real difference in reporting.

With all the concerns about comments -- and yes, I have voiced mine before -- getting smart, engaged readers involved is the best solution.