And sometimes a simple, straight-forward comment is all it takes to stop the propaganda effort dead in its tracks (hence why many such articles have the comment section mysteriously disabled, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/18/syria-white-he... ). Leaving it to readers to go out and actively vet the information on some other 'forum' just allows the propaganda to spread further than it otherwise would.

A voice of reason can quickly be overshadowed by a wave of ignorance. The comments sections on most of the news articles I've seen, when they're up, are usually divisive noisy trolls.

Negligible price to pay.

But it outweighs the benefits if the noise level is so high that the one or two sane comments don't even get seen.

Straightforward, easily verified observations have a habit of rising to the top. Longwinded tirades about MK Ultra are easy to skip.

Let the comments speak for themselves. Don't hide them behind a barrier. Freedom of expression is more important than protecting people from reading mean ideas about their favorite politician etc.

You have the freedom to go on Twitter and write mean things about someone's favorite politician.

And news sites have the freedom to remove unwanted noise and divisive trolling from their articles.

> And news sites have the freedom to remove unwanted noise and divisive trolling from their articles.

Sure they have, but if you actually consider media the "fourth branch of government" then wouldn't it be more desirable to let people have public discourse and debate, after all, that's supposed to be its role?

Print media at least has reader's letters, what's the modern equivalent of digital media? Comments! They allow even more people to participate in the discourse. Disable the comments and what's left? Pretty much nothing but articles quoting random noise from Twitter, which isn't something everybody can or wants to participate in.