The business stories that draw the most reader comments

David Callaway, the editor in chief of Marketwatch, writes about the stories on its Web site that attract the most reader comments and says he’s surprised at the lack of furor about planes being grounded.

Callaway writes, “But aside from the occasionally startling lack of political correctness — intended or otherwise — a lot of these threads have solid entertainment value and in many cases, good learning value from some of the more sophisticated arguments. And for those of us in the newsroom, the size of the threads of the comments helps indicate which stories draw readers’ passions more than others.

“Political stories are always a draw, as everybody knows. So are markets stories. Both types can draw hundreds, in some cases thousands of comments in a day. So it was no surprise that our story Wednesday about Fed chief Ben Bernanke’s testimony to Congress generated more than 500 comments by the time of this writing. See full story and comments

“Another story that generated several dozen comments was a piece where readers complained that the Fed’s campaign to cut rates has crushed their fixed-income investments and IRA, and threatened them with inflation.

“But one of our other most read stories, about UAL Corp.’s United Airlines grounding 52 long-haul aircraft, and causing havoc in several airports serving international flights, generated only five comments.”

Read more here.