March 20, 2007
Is the anonymity of the internet a good or bad thing?
I just posted a story titled "Is the anonymity of the web a good thing?", which is basically discussing some of the same issues that I was addressing in a previous post.
It is an important issue, so I wanted to point out this article to anyone who may have missed it when it was published online.
We allow readers to post comments on the end of articles anonymously, as do a lot of other newspapers around the country.
We are concerned with some of the nasty comments some readers feel compelled to post, but we are also concerned that moderating your comments, will effectively silence many of you.
If we require you to sign your name to all your posts, will that mean we would only get the "politically correct" responses, rather than how you really feel about the issues?
And if we require you to sign in, that just means you need a new email address, which aren't hard to come by these days, so how much would that really help?
I don't think anonymity online is the problem, but not realizing some of the people online are not who they say they are, might be.
I hope you, the reader, realize that some people will say things that are inappropriate because no one will know who they are.
The internet provides everyone a platform where they can express their views about pretty much any topic, but it makes it even more important that you trust the sites where you are getting your information from.
For under $100, I can set up a web site where I claim to be a medical center and start dispensing medical advice for a small fee, even though I have no medical training at all.
The web is a wonderful thing, never before have we had so much valuable information at our fingertips, but that doesn't mean the web is free of troublemakers.
At the end of the day, I still think allowing you to comment anonymously is better than the alternative, and we'll deal with the inappropriate comments as they happen.
Ideally, article commenting, message boards, and responses to blogs are your place to express your views, and you will demand from fellow posters that they stop using them to launch personal attacks on views they don't subscribe to.
Posted by Bustraan on 9:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2007
Posting comments
The web has given the public the ability to comment on news stories by newspapers and television news outlets through blogs, message boards and article commenting, all of which we now have on our web site as well.
Don't agree with our analysis? You can now post your reaction at the end of the story through our article commenting script.
Think we are ignoring an issue that needs to be covered? You can now post a new topic in our message board and start your own discussion.
And if you really think topics are being ignored, you can now set up your own blog and say whatever you want.
In reading many of the comments you are posting, however, it seems a lot of posters think this means they can attack the views of other posters, which is not was these new features were set up for.
The various methods of commenting were set up to encourage a frank exchange of ideas, a way to debate topics of importance to everyone in the community in which we live.
Many of the newspapers that allow the public to post comments, have been forced to moderate those comments due to the abuse of the feature by some of their users. I guess "moderate" is another way of saying "censoring" your comments.
I may not like some of the comments you are posting, or agree with them, but I feel strongly that you have the right to say whatever you want, so we do not moderate our article commenting.
We do read them, and occasionally, someone posts a comment that gets our attention, which is the reason we allow commenting in the first place.
There have been several instances where the comments have gotten abusive, there have been instances when some have posted inappropriate comments, and instances of posters trying to advance a personal agenda, and we were forced to turn moderation on for a short period of time.
I have received emails from readers who were offended by some of the comments posted, and in one instance, a reader who claimed that comments attributed to him were posted by someone else.
Remember, people say things anonymously they would never say if they had to sign their name to the statement. This means you may see comments of how people really feel about an issue as opposed to a "politically correct" post, but it also means some people will use the opportunity to post things that shouldn't be said on this forum.
While I encourage you to join the discussion, I hope you will take this seriously and post comments that will provide insight into the issues facing us today. Post what you want, but be aware, abusive or inappropriate comments may be removed.
Posted by Bustraan on 2:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 11, 2007
Newspaper of the future
Have you noticed the newspapers you have been reading for years are shrinking in size? Have you seen the stories about newspapers cutting staff and shifting resources to their online products? What’s going on?
We keep hearing that newspapers are in trouble, circulation is falling, so is revenue, and the web is to blame.
According to a Carnegie Corp. survey, the average age of newspaper readers is 55. Young readers aren't getting the news from newspapers.
Increasingly, younger readers are getting their information online from web sites that are updated constantly, throughout the day.
Every day, I attend a news meeting where the various editors discuss the stories we will put into the paper that will be delivered to you in the morning.
When it’s my turn to let the editors know the stories we have added to the web site every afternoon, most of the stories I mention will be the same ones that are published in tomorrow’s paper.
Why are young readers not reading the paper?
That's what we are trying to figure out.
Is it because too many of the stories in the morning newspaper are the same stories they were reading online yesterday?
So what do we do? Should newspapers stop carrying wire stories and only publish local stories, assuming readers are getting their national news online? What about our web edition- should we put those national stories online, or should we assume web readers are getting their national news from cnn.com, msnbc.com, google or yahoo.
The Web allows us to provide you with real time news, audio, and video, and offers us unlimited space, so we can provide much more in-depth coverage of subjects than would be possible in the daily newspaper.
This is an exciting, although a bit scary time, as we are in the process of defining how news will be delivered to future generations of readers.
This blog will discuss our journey along the information superhighway of the future, and how we deal with all the roadblocks and potholes we encounter along the way.
I hope you will provide your input as we shape the future of journalism.
Posted by Bustraan on 6:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
