That's where making commenting a perk (among others) of being a __paying subscriber__ would be a change in business model that might be beneficial. Though that alone wouldn't get me to pay. Weight towards focus of research I find valuable might.
Back in the day the revenue from charging someone to comment paled in comparison to the reason everyone added comment sections: user generated content attracted traffic from search engines.
In the early 2000s I used to run a small travel related website and added commenting. Ads just on comment deep link pages paid the rent on my apartment.
Even if it doesn't make the comments better, it's at least the paper's paying audience, so at the very least it's "authentic." If their subscriber base is all racists, well, I guess that's enlightening.
Just the requirement that one have valid payment mechanism deanonymizes most people, at least to the newspaper. That should tamper most of the worst behavior. The holdout jerks can then be banned in a way that sticks.
