What's more, the site is democratic.  Readers can vote on the best comments which will be displayed more prominently and comments that people find offensive can be directed to the editorial staff. 

Commenting on the trial run launched last Monday, the site's interactivity editor Vicky Taylor said, "It's been a really interesting week, and we could not be more pleased with how it has gone. We have had more than 1,000 people registering, so already it has delivered one of its key objectives - more voices on our site.

"We are learning that by far the vast majority of comments are interesting, intelligent and informed and the odd grammatical mistake is acceptable against the vast improvement of accessibility."

Such interactive websites are predicted by media pundits to be a permanent characteristic of the media landscape.  So far, regional papers have been leading the way providing their communities with "town squares" through which they can discuss matters.  Some major newspapers have begun to provide their readers with blogs and forums and will most likely continue to expand their offerings to the public. But the BBC seems to be the first large news organization to provide its readers with a means of collective fact-checking and interacting with one another.

Source: journalism.co.uk