What with the celebrity death march currently in progress -- Michael Jackson, Walter Cronkite, the Taco Bell Chihuahua -- our country has had plenty to talk about. And because celebrity gossip sites like TMZ.com have been the to-the-second source for news of this sort, where better to talk than online?

We are in the age of the user comment, something only recently emerged from the obscurity of Halo cheat code forums and Harry Potter fan fiction sites. Now, even the most mainstream of publications host comments on their sites, usually prominently beneath news or opinion pieces.

Now you can instantly gauge the spread of Michael Jackson's reputation through a few quick clicks on the media site of your choice, the user comments ranging from adoring memorials to conspiracy theories linking the singer to Tupac's death. It's even better in local news, where the online citizenry of today weigh in on how hot a mom in a photograph is and whether a rapist should be shot or mutilated or both.

But then people surprise you with insightful commentary on the latest school board controversy or President Barack Obama's slip of the tongue. Moments like those make you sit back and give a long hard think about all the views out there that traditional newspapers weren't letting through.

Comments are something that reporters love to hate and bloggers love to love. They're also something the Collegian doesn't yet do, except on its blogs.

Time will tell if that will change. But for those clamoring for increased transparency and interactivity, there a few challenges in the way that most people don't know about.

Online comments can be libelous -- libel being a false statement that makes someone look bad -- even if they're anonymous and completely separate from the publication's editorial content. And unless newspapers are completely hands-off in moderating, they expose themselves to getting sued by hosting comments, or at least subpoenaed.

Case in point: Yahoo! News was once served a subpoena requiring the company to release the identity of a bunch of online commenters who had talked disparagingly of a company on the site's online forums. A few years later in 2008, a Maryland Dunkin Donuts owner subpoenaed Independent Newspapers, Inc. to find out the identities of a number of commenters who called his establishment "dirty" and "unsanitary."

Seems like small-time stuff, but the legal bills pile up.

Ironically, only a site dedicated to slander seemed to get around that problem: JuicyCampus, everyone's favorite defunct troll blog. JuicyCampus made it company policy not to link any identifying information on site users with any specific content, making the whole operation virtually subpoena-proof.

Comments present a significant ethical challenge for newspapers, too. We have an editorial page for a reason: Views from the community can be displayed in an orderly and composed fashion, with accountability on all sides. There's a person minding the store.

But industry professionals acknowledge that the volume of online comments is such that it's impractical to screen each one. At best, some publications just shut down comments on certain stories they know will attract bad attention.

As a reporter, I've raced online to see the comments on stories I've written.

But as an editor, I realize there can be a heavy price to pay for the privilege of allowing readers to make jokes about Farrah Fawcett's anal cancer.

We'll see what happens at the Collegian in the future. But for now, I'm sure there's a Jon & Kate Plus 8 post on PerezHilton.com that needs commenting.

Andrew McGill is a senior majoring in journalism and is The Daily Collegian's Wednesday columnist. His e-mail address is arm5077@psu.edu.