Brian Mahoney, Pulitzer Center
When a reader named Jonathan from Caracas, Venezuela disagreed with a Pulitzer Center reporting
project on President Hugo Chavez's social programs, he expressed his concern in writing. Right on the Pulitzer Center's website.
"I strongly disagree with this site," he said in the comments section of a Venezuela project photo slide show. "Some of the pictures about Chavez's Social Programs are really achievements of past governments."
Jonathan's comments in turn provoked rebuttals from other users. A reader named Balthazar from Paris said that the Pulitzer Center should not be labeled a "chavista" simply because it showed progress in Chavez's government. He also said that many of Chavez's programs are new and well-liked in Venezuela.
"More than six million people have applied for a membership of the new Socialist Party of Venezuela founded by Hugo Chavez," Balthazar wrote. "Total population of Venezuela is 26 million people. 6 million from 26 million!"
Reader feedback, formerly consigned to the "Letters to the Editor" section in the print pages, is now a staple of online news. The internet has made news media so accessible and interactive that the reader's voice is now as loud — and as vital — as the writer's. What's more, online comments have eased communication across countries and cultures. Discussion on a story launched in the USA can now take place at once in places as far apart as Caracas and Paris.
And the Pulitzer Center welcomes this discussion across its website. In keeping with its multimedia, multi-platform approach to news reporting, it is no surprise that the center's photo slide shows and videos on YouTube have drawn just as much reader commentary as its more traditional print stories.
Reader commentary has also fulfilled another key Pulitzer Center goal: sustained, reporting that doesn't end on the date of print. Comments on the articles and photo slide shows in the 2007 Pulitzer project "Ethiopia: Tainted Ally" for example, continue into 2008, with users responding to both the news content and feedback from fellow readers.
Perhaps the most intriguing comments come from readers who, like Jonathan from Caracas, live in the country that is the subject of reporting. Oftentimes, they disagree with the story's angle and submit their own perspectives on their home country — as well as their thoughts on international journalism.
"Reporting does not have to be making a big picture of a doomsday," Seyoum G.M. wrote from Addis Ababa. "Do not forget that Ethiopia had a flourishing civilization long before America was born and Europe was in its dark ages ... We are a people of a three millennium history, with rich culture we are still proud of. Travel the length and breadth of the country before reporting."
The comment, made in September 2007, sparked dozens of replies in a conversation that continues today.
Writers also benefit from reader feedback. Many readers disagreed with how Anuj Chopra portrayed Iran in his 2008 reporting — and let him know on Pulitzer Center's website. One user, after reading the comments, even e-mailed Anuj directly telling him about a more "positive" Iran.
For Anuj, reader feedback — especially the critical sort — provides a valuable assessment of his reporting. It also allows him to speak on his own limitations as a reporter, circumstances rarely conveyed in the newspaper or on the web.
And in Iran, Anuj's limitations were vast. He reported from Iran without accreditation from the Iranian government, a necessary risk that limited his ability to travel the entire country. In an e-mail reply to the reader, he spoke about the dangers of his assignment and the effect they had on his reporting.
"I exited [Iran] 4 days early because my fixer was nervous I had interviewed too many people not in favor of the regime or who'd just got out of prison — or clerics in Qom who I couldn't approach directly as a reporter (for lack of press accreditation) and had to use some very unconventional ways to access them," he wrote to the reader. "My fixer, too, could have been in serious trouble if found helping a non-accredited reporter. He's served time in prison before and took a lot of risk fixing/translating for me."
Anuj also said that he valued the reader's opinion and looked forward to returning to Iran.
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