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Question -- what would you do?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by crimsonace, Jan 20, 2009.

  1. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    the readers are your customer. they own your product ... annnnnnd gooooo titans.
     
  2. Fredrick

    Fredrick Well-Known Member

    Anonymous comments are ridiculous. Part of the demise of society. Rude, crude, the way we are treating people in 2009.
     
  3. Barsuk

    Barsuk Active Member

    So let them write a letter to the editor and sign their name to it. When I'm publisher, we won't print anonymous reader comments.
     
  4. ServeItUp

    ServeItUp Active Member

    This sounds like the "Vent" in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, only more small-town and petty, less clever. The Vent rarely prints (not to say it doesn't receive) comments about the AJC's content, but does run comments about the state of the world, or at least the Atlanta area; witness numerous references to the "Yankee invasion of the past 25 years." I think you reserve the right to spike a comment if it's potentially libelous, and certainly if there's no way to verify information.

    A paper where I used to work had this feature around the turn of the millennium, and it got scuttled when one of the posts offended a major advertiser, who threatened to pull his dollars of we didn't get rid of the feature. Needless to say, money spoke and bullshit took a long stroll down a short pier.
     
  5. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    I wouldn't run it.
     
  6. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    Which also sounds like the Bitch Session in The Washington Blade. Anonymous blatherings, often about stuff that was in that particular publication.

    Though I doubt very seriously that paper's editors print everything they get.
     
  7. Some Guy

    Some Guy Active Member

    Isn't this what the letters to the editor section is supposed to be about? And last I checked, those were supposed to be signed. Can't just send in anonymous libel.
     
  8. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    sorry, dude. i should have blue fonted that.
     
  9. DirtyDeeds

    DirtyDeeds Guest

    Which is why I folllowed by saying the anonymous route isn't the best one, but thanks for using my quote out of context. I thought this was the journalism board. ;)
    Anyway, the Orlando paper also did a Vent type of thing that was anonymous comments, such as "Hey, you in the blue car who cut me off and gave me the finger! You're a jerk." or "Thanks to the man on I-4 who helped me change my flat tire." I thought that was a good way to let the readers have their comments heard. And those are the types of things you wouldn't put in the letters to the editor. I'm sure they had to take a lot of care in choosing what to print. And like someone else said, if they name someone or say something controversial, you simply don't run it.
     
  10. micke77

    micke77 Member

    No way i would have run that...no way...and what Barsuk posted is right on: the anonymous "blatherings" of readers....ugh.
     
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