The Newsroom

Here's an early version of my Newsroom column for tomorrow's paper, recapping some of the discussion in recent weeks regarding community comments and the newspaper's role in screening them:

Much has been said or written in recent weeks about the role of newspapers in controlling the tone of comments posted to blogs. The American Society of Newspaper Editors is among those taking a hard look at this evolving issue, and has asked editors from around the country to weigh in.
Last week, we found ourselves in the middle of it after we removed some offensive comments that were posted to a story from our 24/7 blog, and, then again, to our sbnow blog.
The latter sparked a firestorm from posters who felt the newspaper was playing the role of censor. Wrote "Linda:"
It's amazing how MURDERS get all the play in the paper but now we are censored about how we feel in the communities we live in.
And "Free Speech 4 All:"
I realize this is their site and that they are going to post "pro-(Mayor Pat) Morris" agenda; however it isn't right and I won't let it happen quietly.
On the other end of the spectrum was the reader who brought to our attention the comments from the 24/7 blog, and wondered why we don't screen them.
Let's look at these one at a time. First, the notion that we're censoring comments.
As I've written before, the internet is the purest mass medium out there when it comes to free speech, and if you're in the free-speech business, as we are, you want to be mindful of your responsibility to protect a free flow of ideas. But we also have a duty to protect our own credibility, and when it comes to commentary that is libelous, malicious or otherwise crosses all reasonable bounds of fairness or taste, we're not going to be a party to it.
It's a gray area, admittedly, and it doesn't mean we won't post unpopular opinions, or opinions we don't agree with. But we're not going to stand by and allow a commenter to accuse someone of a criminal act or unseemly behavior.
Inaccuracies and misstatements of fact are also major concerns. CNN ran into this problem last week when a "citizen journalist" posted an item on its iReport site that Apple computer chief Steve Jobs had had a heart attack.
Which begs the question: Do we, or should we, screen comments before they're posted.
The prevailing industry view is that we can't,because of the volume we receive, and that we need to rely on the community's help in policing them.
Then there's this approach, which another blogger shared with me last week:
I found your commentary on blogging very interesting. I have a blog but deactivated comments. Most of them were either offensive, either in a stalking type way or racist/sexist or homophobic or they were leaking confidential material from personnel investigations or criticizing the police department which led to an investigation of my site's comments after the police department found out about it. After all that, it just wasn't worth it.
It's a strange new world we're all navigating.

COMMENT
I think the main concern for most complaining bloggers was that only comments attacking one individual were removed. This is an assumption on my part, as I did not have the opportunity to see what was removed. The rest of the comments were left up. I expected everything to be taken down, but it stayed pretty one-sided.
If your reporter can infer that a member of the NAACP is a bigot, I think it's OK to call an aggressive person who admits to being on psychotropic medication crazy. Picking sides was where the blog caught all of its criticism.
It's your paper. It's your blog. However, if you want the public to enjoy your blog while keeping things under control, you might want to put rules up for everyone to see before they post and, if they break the rules, go ahead and remove their comments. Serenah's Angels