The Bloomington Pantagraph has disabled the comments section of their site all weekend because of rampant incivility and personal attacks. In a letter to their readers originally posted December 30, 2009, editor Mark Pickering stated that comments have too often been “offensive and devoid of civility, the worst of which include personal attacks and/or assertions that have nothing to do with the story.”
The ban on commenting over the weekend is intended to be a “cooling off period” and a wake-up call to readers, reminding them “that the reason comments are allowed in the first place is to foster a ‘spirit of community involvement and conversation.'” The comments sections will be turned back on January 4, 2010. Pickering warns, however, “Continued abuse of our standards could lead to further restrictions.”
This once again begs the question: Should newspapers allow comments in the first place? The argument has been made by many that they shouldn’t (here’s one excellent treatment). I tend to agree. Let blogs be blogs, and newspapers be newspapers. The comments on the Journal Star’s website are often just as bad as the Pantagraph’s; I don’t believe it would be any kind of loss if they removed the comments section entirely.
Speaking of the Journal Star: I find it funny that they simply printed the Associated Press report of the Pantagraph’s decision instead of writing an original report on it. I guess when you’re short-staffed, AP coverage of local stories is a godsend.
What an appropriate and responsible thing to do! Kind of restores my faith in humanity.
Maybe everyone should have to sign their real name. I know I have not signed my real name but just saying….
If it is like the PJStar site, there are a handful of people that seem to be responsible for most of those remarks. One way to eliminate some (most) of this would be to revamp the registration system. Everyone has to re-register and include their Panatagraph, PJ Star, NY Times, etc. account number. If you do not subscribe, you do not comment. I know that wouldn’t be fair to us who don’t subscribe and do not comment profanely, but….
Forums have always had the ability to be moderated and the moderator has the ability to remove offensive comments and/or commenters. The Panatagraph is being lazy in trying to get by without such moderation. Comments should be open, but commenters who abuse the privilege should lose that privilege. And as Chef says, it doesn’t take much to establish a culture of responsibility in a forum, but in a vacuum some commenters feel free to be as abusive as they want.
I know this dates me but for some reason I can’t get that old Donny Osmond song out of my head… “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch of girls… oh-ohhhh”
Part of the Pantagraph’s problem was that they allowed comments on nearly EVERY story they published, including those about local people involved in crimes or accidents. Their comment boards following the Gee family murders were loaded with all sorts of ghoulish speculation about how they died, what weapons were used, whodunnit, how competent/incompetent the local sheriff’s police were in investigating, etc.
It’s one thing to open up comments on an important issue pending before the city council, school board, etc. or on a political campaign, or an issue of national importance (health care, terrorism, etc.). Those are the kind of stories that benefit from public debate.
However, it’s another matter entirely to open up comments about a named local resident getting murdered, killed in a traffic accident or other tragedy, or getting busted for drunken driving, shoplifting, drugs, etc. The latter kind of stories do not need to be open for comments because about 99 percent of comments would fall into one of two categories: 1) expressions of sympathy or sorrow about the tragedy involved, which are fine, but not really anything newsworthy, or 2) rants about the stupidity, cruelty, and/or general scumbaggery of the person(s) responsible for what happened.
Case in point: about a week ago a woman from Springfield was hit by a car and killed after getting out of her car along I-55 near Williamsville. The woman who struck her was ticketed for driving on a suspended license. The Springfield State Journal Register did NOT allow comments on this story (they never do on stories of this nature), but the Pantagraph did. Well, guess what, the Pantagraph comments quickly degenerated into a back and forth “debate” about which woman was more to blame for the accident.
I have heard that the Pantagraph has been threatened with a lawsuit over a comment that wrongly accused an educator of a sex crime. That occurred because it laid off the person responsible for moderating the comments! So – perhaps it doesn’t want to pay anyone to moderate the comments on the weekends.
Comments are interesting and may add information to a story. But they must be moderated to weed out libel, falsehoods, etc.
The Pantagraph has to protect their hometown favorite, candidate for gov Bill Brady. Sunlight isn’t Bill Brady’s friend. He’s a sleaze.
The comment section can be useful especially when the reporters “forget” to call folks for comment or an editor “trims” a story for space or to leave room for the next Jon & Kate update. It is especially good in one paper towns where radio and tv merely rip and read from the papers
Right after this story was published, I sent an unrelated and offensive comment about our congressman. Since then, all my comments have been blocked. Thank god. I had become addicted to commenting and stirring things up. I’m better now.