Paper turns off story comments about Norm Stewart’s granddaughter
The Columbia Daily Tribune is getting some support and some criticism for its decision to turn off commenting on a story it ran Sunday about the death of Jennifer Stewart, granddaughter of former basketball coach Norm Stewart, in an auto accident in Columbia.
The time of the accident (3 a.m.) and the speed at which her vehicle was travelling were causing many readers to speculate about the cause of the accident.
According to the Tribune’s Jim Robertson in the managing editor blog:
This morning, many comments speculated whether drugs or alcohol might have been involved in the accident, and subsequent comments were almost exclusively related to the speculation. Several callers to the newsroom complained about the insensitive nature of the commentary, including some members of the Stewart family. By late morning it became clear that, in the balance, the string was causing significant harm.
So the Tribune turned off the commenting function for the story.
Many commenters on the blog screamed favoritism, saying the dispensation of ‘caution’ cited in the blog was really just special consideration for the Stewart family.
Others said that maybe the Stewart family did receive special consideration, but that commenting should be removed from all cases involving accidental deaths.
And some pointed out that it was through the comments, not the story itself, that readers first learned that Jennifer Stewart was Norm’s granddaughter.
Commenting is an issue with which news sites continue to struggle. In some ways, the comments are akin to the personals that readers traditionally have run in classified sections. We have some standards for them, but ultimately the presenter of the information and the consumer of the information are left to monitor the content themselves.
We allow for comments that are misinformed, bombastic and rude … as well as those that are insightful, thoughtful and funny. We don’t allow comments that are off-topic, personal attacks or profane … but those guidelines are subjective.
Commenting should be disabled period. Most of the brain donors who post on newspaper websites are just basement dwelling mouthbreathers who need and outlet for their anger. If readers want to contribute to public discourse, they can write a letter to the editor, or start their own paper/blog/etc.
Most of the brain donors who post on newspaper websites are just basement dwelling mouthbreathers who need and outlet for their anger. If readers want to contribute to public discourse, they can write a letter to the editor, or start their own paper/blog/etc.
— Faithful
12:40 pm September 2nd, 2009
Hello Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle……
Nice, Faithful, an angry and mean comment condemning angry and mean comments. That certainly adds something to the conversation. I think comments should be disabled when reporting on a person’s death, except maybe in the case of a public figure. I think it’s really unfair to the families of these people to provide an open forum where anyone can post anonymous opinions or comments that are often uniformed and insulting. Those who want to make supportive comments can do so in an online guest book or directly. Otherwise, I don’t see the point.
I’d say those rude comments accompany almost every story of accidental death that I have read since commenting on stories has been allowed. I think the newspaper did what they thought was the right thing to do. If it was favoritism because of the young woman’s association with Norm Stewart, that’s fine too.
Personally, those are the articles that are the toughest for me too. I leave a lot of leeway for public figures, crooks and other sorts who call attention to themselves.
But when you see a story about an accident, you ask yourself “what if that were my brother, daughter, uncle or mother” … but that is not the standard by which we edit.
Faithful,
–Maybe you should go with ‘Faithless’.
–Ditto what Amazed and Paul said. So by your own logic, you must be one of those “brain-donor” “basement-dwelling mouth-breathers who need an outlet for their anger”.
–This stuff writes itself.
I think any website that allows comments has the right to delete comments or disable the comenting feature as they see fit. But personally, I wish the Post would moderate their comments with the same set of rules all the time. The Editor must be kidding with the statement, “We don’t allow comments that are off-topic, personal attacks or profane” Some moderators allow racist comments by people of all color to continue on page after page after page. The story of the teenager who shot the Berkeley (I think)police officer is a prime example. Then you have moderators who are over the top and delete anything and everything. Some controversy in posts is okay and should be allowed. But when comments are blatantly racist, profane or attack another poster, they need to be deleted. Just my opinion, and like I said at the beginning of my long winded post, every website has the right to moderate their comments as they see fit. Just as every reader who doesn’t think the comments are anything but garbage can choose to not read the comments.
I think Faithful has quite a sense of humor.
If I were in charge of managing the content of comments, I would delete three-fourths of them due to stupidity, vulgarity and being mean-spirited. Additionally, I would banish those with grammar so bad that you cannot make out the meaning of the sentence/paragraph. Oh, to be King for a day.
One last comment - It is seldom acceptable to write mean, bad, untrue or speculative things about dead people. May they rest in peace.
Amen.
The Truth does raise a good point about the subjectivity of monitoring these. We do, however, allow for racist thoughts, when they are on topic and don’t use racist language … just as we would allow for other “ists” ideas to be shared (pacificst, environmentalist, elitist, etc.).
That’s tough for us to stomach sometimes. But it’s also difficult to shut down some “ists” without shutting them all down.
I’d like to have comments that are opinions, but based on the knowledge available. The problem I have is when people automatically assume something which may not be true. This is like saying someone is guilty until proven innocent. You wouldn’t want that same rule to be applied to you, so why do you do it? If you were there or know someone who was there and know the story that way, say so. It would be nice if there was a live chat room where the people on one side state their case, the people on the other side state their case, and a decision is reached by an impartial mediator.