The crucial difference is that HN doesn’t spend any resources creating the articles so it can focus its actual resources on cultivating a healthy discussion. T

The crucial difference is that HN doesn’t spend any resources creating the articles so it can focus its actual resources on cultivating a healthy discussion. The “toxic a-holes in the comment section” problem is difficult for small blogs where commenters sustain the bulk of the public discussion surrounding each post. But, even for small local newspapers, the conversation about the articles happens outside of the newspaper, and very rarely is there anything useful or substantively original in the comments section on a newspaper website. So while there are arguments for keeping a moderated comments section, it is a lot of cost for probably little benefit (and, as the Inquirer says, they would rather focus on reporting).