On the Media: Your words, your real name (LA Times column re internet comment sections)

[alp227]

Comment board cretins went into overdrive again last week, leaving their ugly mark beneath many news stories about the attack in Egypt on CBS correspondent Lara Logan. Some of the knuckle-walkers insisted on blaming the victim, saying she was too blond or too female to be in a danger zone. Others sought to mete out their digital revenge by blaming all Muslims for the attack on Logan.

The ugly response to the Tahrir Square assault renewed the debate about how much latitude to grant the public when it comments on news stories online, including commentaries by the reader's representative at the Los Angeles Times and the ombudsman for National Public Radio.

NPR intends in March to move to "more tightly moderated comments, in some cases before they are posted," ombudsman Alicia Shepard wrote last week. Martin Beck, reader engagement editor for latimes.com, told me the newsroom's website would like to find a better way to manage conversations that too often "get out of control or ugly."

It seems long past time for reputable news sites to clamp down on the gutter talk. Otherwise the open-door policy at npr.org, latimes.com and many other sites drives down the quality of the conversation and alienates the kind of thoughtful guests that make the party worth coming to in the first place.

Full story: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-onthemedia-20110226,0,7518393.column

[madrchsod]

1. to post comments on my republican rag i had to...

fill out a long form and have a real live person verify that i am who i say i am. my full name is posted with my comment.

[Liberty Belle]

2. Good for them. I moderate comments on a forum on a news site,

and our rules prohibit comments that are racist, defamatory, or profane. We enforce those rules rigorously and have managed to maintain a much more civil discourse than a rival publication where the comments are vicious and at times, scary.

Anyone is free to voice a dissenting or unpopular view on my site, as long as they are polite in tone and respectful of others on the board.

[JDPriestly]

3. Liberty Belle, my dad used to say that if you have to use offensive language

to express an idea, the idea is probably not worth much. If you require people to avoid expletives in their commentary writing, you get more focus on thought. So it's worthwhile to simply inform contributors that expletives and offensive language or images of that sort will be deleted or not permitted at all.

We are not writing novels. In novels and theater, movies and comic books, lots of expletives may be appropriate to define a character. But in a discussion about politics, philosophy or other such things, they are not.

[Liberty Belle]

4. I completely agree!

It's been an interesting experience. We've managed to spark some very in-depth and thoughtful commentary, and gotten even some conservatives to see that issues aren't all black and white (ie on abortion, border issues) but usually many shades of gray.

[bemildred]

5. Would that they got half so upset about ugliness in real life. nt