> Newspapers should simply have a staff member read and approve every post.

You're talking about a lot of added cost for little added value. Newspapers aren't exactly swimming in money these days.

With comments, they could have become facebook. They still can become facebook by offering comments, letting their readers create profiles and expand from there.

Newspapers aren't swimming in money because they don't go all in on online content. Moderating comments, choosing information for their readers, that's their core competence. Writing articles or printing is secondary.

They’re not swimming in money because a thousand small independent newsrooms across the country, working independently, were no match for the massive VC-backed attention-stealing ad-revenue-sucking social networks coming out of Silicon Valley.

This is how the NYT moderation works. They even have "Editor's Choice"-type badges to signify high quality comments

Yeah, it works at NYT scale. They have a massive paying subscriber base, and they can afford to operate both automatic and manual moderation systems. But it’s not scalable downwards.

This is what the Guardian does too. Their frontend is open-source: https://github.com/guardian/frontend

I think part of it is the commenters belonging to a community that has some sort of shared understanding. Whether that be a political leaning, or a desire for respectful comments (HN to some degree), or a view that flame wars and insults aren't a problem (4chan).

Somebody said it on this very page at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26461659 . (-: