Digital Observatory

About NewsTalk

As of 17 October 2024

NewsTalk is an aggregator of reader commentary on the majority of Australian news sites. NewsTalk also harvests Reddit comment threads linking Australian news stories. This provides good coverage of the Australian news landscape even when publishers don’t support on-site reader comments.

Figure 1: Number of stories by source
Figure 2: Number of comments by source and comment type
Figure 3: Proportion of comments by source and comment type
Table 1: Number of comments by comment type
Comment type Number of comments Percentage of comments
Linked comment 1,345,073 42%
Site comment 1,879,640 58%
Total comments 3,224,713 100%
Figure 4: Distribution of number of comments by story
(a) Excluding stories with zero or a very large number (97.5 percentile) of site comments or linked comments
Table 2: Descriptive statistics for comment length (in words) by comment type
Statistic Linked comments Site comments
Average comment length 41.3 34.9
Median comment length 25.0 21.0
Standard deviation of comment length 55.8 44.2
Skewness of comment length 6.1 4.7
Figure 5: Average comment length (in words) by source and comment type
Table 3: Average number of comments per story by comment type
Comment type Average number of comments per story
Site comment 28.3
Linked comment 20.3
Total comments 48.6
Table 4: Number of stories and comments by source
Source Number of stories Number of comments
MSN News 13,936 321,384
Nine Media 9,405 662,912
ABC News 8,370 625,068
The Daily Mail 5,664 8,584
Sky News Australia 5,502 523,901
Australian Community Media 5,159 34,679
The Guardian 4,203 648,784
Crikey 2,992 71,999
The Conversation 2,297 77,194
Perth Now 2,058 40,510
The New Daily 1,315 30,444
Independent Australia 1,308 24,456
Echo Media 1,111 4,120
Kotaku AU 1,025 2,564
News.com.au 682 101,704
iTnews 625 3,069
SBS News 410 31,286
The Saturday Paper 155 11,658
MamaMia 91 397
Quadrant 57 0
Table 5: Average and median number of comments by source and comment type
Source Comment type Average comments Median comments
ABC News Site comment 0.0 0.0
Linked comment 74.7 20.0
Total comments 74.7 20.0
Australian Community Media Site comment 6.6 3.0
Linked comment 0.1 0.0
Total comments 6.7 3.0
Crikey Site comment 17.5 10.0
Linked comment 6.6 0.0
Total comments 24.1 11.0
Echo Media Site comment 3.7 2.0
Linked comment 0.0 0.0
Total comments 3.7 2.0
Independent Australia Site comment 14.9 10.0
Linked comment 3.8 0.0
Total comments 18.7 10.0
Kotaku AU Site comment 2.3 1.0
Linked comment 0.2 0.0
Total comments 2.5 1.0
MSN News Site comment 16.6 6.0
Linked comment 6.5 0.0
Total comments 23.1 7.0
MamaMia Site comment 4.4 2.0
Linked comment 0.0 0.0
Total comments 4.4 2.0
News.com.au Site comment 0.0 0.0
Linked comment 149.1 61.5
Total comments 149.1 61.5
Nine Media Site comment 65.5 23.0
Linked comment 5.0 0.0
Total comments 70.5 26.0
Perth Now Site comment 18.0 11.0
Linked comment 1.7 0.0
Total comments 19.7 11.5
Quadrant Site comment 0.0 0.0
Linked comment 0.0 0.0
Total comments 0.0 0.0
SBS News Site comment 0.0 0.0
Linked comment 76.3 21.0
Total comments 76.3 21.0
Sky News Australia Site comment 92.5 39.0
Linked comment 2.7 0.0
Total comments 95.2 40.0
The Conversation Site comment 10.7 3.0
Linked comment 22.9 0.0
Total comments 33.6 8.0
The Daily Mail Site comment 0.0 0.0
Linked comment 1.5 0.0
Total comments 1.5 0.0
The Guardian Site comment 76.7 0.0
Linked comment 77.7 18.0
Total comments 154.4 70.0
The New Daily Site comment 18.7 5.0
Linked comment 4.5 0.0
Total comments 23.2 6.0
The Saturday Paper Site comment 0.0 0.0
Linked comment 75.2 29.0
Total comments 75.2 29.0
iTnews Site comment 3.7 2.0
Linked comment 1.2 0.0
Total comments 4.9 2.0

Contact information

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