Getting an online voice requires opening your company and yourself to criticism and negative comments. The Washington Post said, "Enough!" today to their own blog commentors by pulling the plug on all comments, site-wide.

Often, when you respond quickly, calmy, and you’re already a well-known figure on a site, you can diffuse negative comments before they take on a life of their own. 

My suggestion would have been to already have a  PR blogger that had a good reputation for fairness start answering the comments immediatly and follow that with a calming post about steering away from personal attacks and focusing on the discussion.  We’re all thick-skinned enough to handle negative reviews of our job performance, but when you start talking about the way I look, you’ve crossed the line.

Now, I wasn’t a follower of the discussion, so I can’t say whether or not that strategy was tried, and simply failed, but I’m guessing it was more like 2 days worth or barely addressed comments that ended up making the posters feel they weren’t heard and emboldened their reactionary postings. 

1. Address it privately
   If possible, email the person and address the issue politely. A nice word or a comment of understanding can diffuse the negative situation.
2. Address it publicly and quickly
   Larger sites have someone who ‘only’ deals with reader comments. When you get hundreds a day, and I’m sure the Washington Post gets close to a thousand a day, you MUST designate a person for that job.

I subscribe to the RSS feed for comments to the site. I’m alerted quickly when a comment is posted and I almost always reply back on the blog. If there has been a question, and an email is provided, then I’ll take the time to draft an email to the poster.

These actions offer that personal touch that makes a blog such a great PR tool.