Great News!

We'll see how it works out in practice, but on the face of it, this looks like a great idea.

We wanted to give you a heads-up on a new, experimental feature we'll be trying out on the Google News home page. Starting this week, we'll be displaying reader comments on stories in Google News, but with a bit of a twist...

We'll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question.Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report.

So now, if this works as indicated, when a story involving defensive gun use is reported poorly in the media, those involved will be able to clarify the report in public without interference from the potentially biased reporter. Let's hope it works.