We’re beginning a test today that will “pause” the reader commenting function on our website. All comments previously posted will be erased and nobody will have the ability to post new comments on stories.

I’m all for experimentation. Telling your loyal commenters that you’ve erased all their previous comments is a sure way to erase that loyalty, however. I don’t know if the Greeley Tribune really did erase all old comments, or, should the Tribune re-activate article comments, if those previous comments would return. That seems worth explaining.

If ever there was clear evidence of the failure of bureaucratic journalism, this is it. We have created newspapers groaning with executive editors, editors, managing editors, assistant managing editors, city editors, desk editors, copy editors and wire editors. What is needed is to clean out the bureaucracy that is has either blocked or slowed down necessary change. The recent redesign of the Chicago Tribune was overseen by a committee of 37 of these editors. No wonder it was so dull. With their six-figure salaries and prized glassed-in offices, the bureaucracy is choking off the oxygen newspapers need to survive.