Blogs such as Daily Kos hire people from its comment section-CJR

8/24/11, "From Commenter to Contributor," Alysia Santo, Columbia Journalism Review, The News Frontier

• "On some blogs, taking the comment section seriously can mean hiring people from it."

"When a site takes its comment section seriously, treating it as an integral part of the site rather than a nuisance, a site can stand to gain a lot—and not just in traffic numbers. Some sites regularly find contributors from the comment section, hiring them and even promoting them. A well written and informative comment can serve as proof of a person’s interest in a site and its content—a sort of audition, allowing a person to try out their ideas on other people. And for employers, particularly ones in a blog setting, mining the comments for possible hires is a way to find someone

• whose writing voice matches that of the site.

Left-leaning political blog Daily Kos embraces this idea fully, hiring almost exclusively from its comments section. Susan Gardner, the executive editor of the site, had been an editor of a community newspaper in her twenties, but took fifteen years off to raise her children. Once she had some more time, she started reading the site regularly, ultimately signing up to comment. She was soon writing what Daily Kos calls “Diaries,” which is a longer type of blog entry that lines the right hand side of the page, an option available to any commenter after a week. Soon her diary entries were being featured on the front page, and eventually she was chosen for a fellowship. She moved up from there, going from full time contributor to executive editor."...

• via Poynter.org/Romenesko

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