Plain Dealer editor acknowledges vitriolic reader comments, throws up her hands

F_B, we agree on many things, but not this.

I think this WP ombud column explains what I think is the best of a tough situation:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/08/AR2009050802842.html

 

I'm actually kind of surprised at how far I apparently continue to be in the minority on this -- and in disagreement with a lot of people I respect. Maybe it's because of where I work now, a place where community is a gigantic part of what we do.

I truly think it goes beyond that, though. In fact, I'm going to go a bit over the top to make a point and say that these message boards have a lot more to do with what this country is supposed to be about than any "must provide name and address" letter to the editor.

First, it's my (entirely unsupported by any provable fact, only my observation) contention that the vast majority of posts on message boards are by responsible people and/or responsible people responding to the idiots. We tend to remember the racists and mouthbreathers and homophobes and the (pick your own distasteful group)s because of some of the outrageous and disgusting things they post. We tend to forget all the reasoned reader comments and discourse and constructive debate because it's just not memorable. I think we're interested in eliminating message boards that are a good thing for 80 percent of our readers because of the 20 percent who use the process badly.

For more than 200 years, American newspapers were a one-way street to our readership unless they really wanted to go the effort of writing a letter to the editor and buying a stamp to mail it. Message boards have changed the process, and understandably, people don't like it. Some writers, for example, don't like being called idiots for what they write -- even though this is simply a written account of what those same people are thinking anyway.

Those comments coming back in real time, from anybody who has a computer, is free speech, something almost all of us are presumably for.

If we took some of the discussions on the SportsJournalists.com political board and put them on the bottom of a newspaper story, some people would be horrified. Yet extremely (we hope) reasonable people are writing those posts, respected members of this place on both sides of the political spectrum (and every place in between).

To me, these message boards are the Internet equivalent of a wide-open town meeting, and if that's bad for our business or the country, then I have to wonder about the whole thing.

At its simplest, let me ask those who would do away with message boards this: Are you against free speech, the concept that any American has the right to express an opinion or idea, no matter how distasteful, as long as it doesn't lead to infringement on the rights of others?

And understand, a lot of these message boards ARE monitored, so there's a level of censorship anyway. You can make a good case that's wrong, too, but I have no problem with it.

I understand it's not nearly as simple as I'm making it, but my bottom line must be obvoius: Message boards on media sites are here to stay, and in my world,they should be.

At its best, the process of deciding where this country is headed, politically or otherwise, has always been a messy business. Having or not having message boards isn't going to change that.

 

Wow. She must have been really hungry.

 

Two reactions, SF:

1) If the reader posts you see are 80/20 positive, I'm amazed. My local paper runs closer to 80/20 assholes, and the 20% minority is mostly just reasonable people reacting to the assholes.

2) This strikes me as a really weak dodge on the issue:

Yes, I suppose someone has the right to point out that a 13 year old violin prodigy has really pathetic tits and will never succeed unless she gets implants. He does not have the right to do it as the first comment under a feature story in that young girl's hometown paper. Her parents probably would have liked to send that link to relatives and friends, but it sure as hell didn't happen thanks to the free interchange of ideas included at the end.

And yes, people may have a right to state their case that all Mexicans are feral, ignorant pieces of shit who are destroying this country and need to be shipped out or shot. But they do not have the right to make that case on virtually every story on a newspaper's website, turning a story on a new community garden, for example, into yet another contest to see who can come up with the most effective way to kill Mexicans as they cross the border.

And no, these are not extreme examples. The racist stuff is very common.

There is no good reason to denigrate your product by pretending you're having a conversation with readers. It's more like allowing graffiti on your storefront. Let the assholes start a blog somewhere.

 

When you cite things like this, it's hard for me to make a defense, isn't it?

I don't know where you work, and can't do anything but believe you, but 80 percent assholes? That's not my experience, that's all I can say.

As to the examples, and sending links to relatives or whatever -- your place has no ability to remove these offensive threads? We do. Usually the argument isn't so much about technical ability as it is having the manpower to watch everything. But if you know about these, it seems there should be something built into the system that allows people to remove them. If that's not the case, to me, it should be.

I was trying not to get on too high a horse on the freedom of speech point, but I fundamentally believe in it, too.

 

Sorry, SF, that's our experience here. Might be closer to 90 percent assholes, since we're so close to the border. I mean, how many articles can a reader click on without getting sick of the "well, if so-and-so wasn't here illegally, they wouldn't have gotten in that car wreck/landed in the hospital/had their apartment broken into/won that civic award right now" comments on EVERY story? It's so mentally draining to read that stuff EVERY day.

And, yes, our web desk does have the ability to remove (certain) comments, but it's such a time-consuming task and they are so short-staffed and overloaded as it is that it's impossible to do much about it.

 

Understood.

The Washington Post has two people for the task, which is interesting. We have people pretty much dedicated to that, too. I guess sitting in those seats, it's easy to defend if you have the resources to clean them up.

 

Depending on the thread topic, the asshole content can very, but I would say it's 20 percent on innocuous topics and up to 80 on things like a minority being charged with a crime or some such thing.

 

Re: Plain Dealer editor acknowledges vitriolic reader comments, throws up her ha

The worst thing about reader comments is how people keep coming back to your site to see if people commented on their comment.

I mean, who cares about all those pesky time on site and page view stats really do get in the way.

imagine wanting to create something that keeps bringing people back to your product more than just once. gasp.

 

Someone suggested earlier on that the commenters should just "write a letter to the editor". Here is why that solution is DOA.

I write letters to the editor frequently. Maybe one in fourty or fifty gets printed. Probably the reason is that there is a space limitation; I understand that. Nonetheless, an Internet commenter gets his "letter" published every time and there is never a space limitation. Are newspapers that are already in bad shape financially going to devote three or four pages every day to "Letters to the Editor" so that everyone who has a comment on a story can "be heard"? I doubt it... So the dedicated commenter who starts or continues a pissing contest online has no motivation whatsoever to just write a letter to the editor.

I believe that the problem with the "comments wars" that break out is that there is no "peacekeeping force". While it is impractical to ban all "free e-mail account sources" - - think about what that does to the concept of "free expression" for a moment - - it would be possible to ban individual commenters who are rude/abusive/whatever. An e-mail to anyone exhibiting behavior that is "improper" explaining that they will be blocked from commenting should then maintain that improper behavior can work - - even if they change e-mail accounts and continue to be offensive. The problem is that it requires people to monitor the comments sections and to have the judgment to ascertain which comments are truly improper from ones that merely express unpopular views. And once again, that costs money and most newspapers don't have an abundance of that to throw around these days.

Finally, the lack of civility in comments sections is not limited to the knuckle-dragging elements of the general populace. When I read stories about how newspapers have shafted their workforce and slashed jobs and fired people in very inhumane ways, I also read the comments from people who work at those papers. They too publish under "screen names" or anonymously and they can be as vitriolic and as crude in their comments as the uncivil knuckle-draggers. I can only imagine the screeches that would emanate if those folks were not allowed to comment anonymously about such situations...

 

Even if someone keeps coming back to a story to see if his or her comment was commented on, how does that make anyone any money? And what about the tradeoffs? Most stories at Buckweaver's shop merely serve as opportunities to spew racist claptrap; isn't this profession, if it still is one, bigger than that?

 

To clarify: I don't work at the paper, so I can't speak to their policies. My wife freelances for the paper and has largely quit looking at her stories online because it's just too depressing. I work at a TV station in town, and after a very brief foray into reader comments management pulled the plug. It wasn't worth it.

And on Buck's point: the local paper doesn't even allow comments on stories involving immigrants anymore, but it doesn't matter. Every thread turns into that. And if someone is arrested and not identified in the story, the first comment is some variation of either "You knows it's a Mexican" or "Typical - protecting the illegal POS identity again." (Well, OK, it's the second comment, because the first comment is usually "FIRST!!")