A thought before vacation
This year's vacation, by the bye, won't be so grand, but I may make a few remarks.
Meanwhile, I'm actually going to say something nice about a media outlet. It's not remarkable that it's a newspaper, but it is amazing that it's The Salem Evening News. A couple of dog's lives ago, when I was in PR on the North Shore, my relations with that paper were, well, uneven.
One of the dead weights that keeps Internet news from achieving maturity is the anonymous comment column. Done, I suppose, in the name of open access, it has really set journalism back 175 years, to a time when most news was anonymous.
Not long ago, the comments in the Salem News online edition made Fox news comment forums smell like free sample day at the perfume counter. People with something thoughtful to say would sooner dive into an open sewer than post a comment to this private club of garbage-mouthed trolls. In my professional relations with the paper years ago, their ethics had sometimes seemed a bit situational. But now they've put on their white hats and gone riding out with the posse. Posts to the comments column must now have a verifiable name and address attached, just as letters to the editor have done for over a century. Good on you, Salem News: the air already smells cleaner.
Guess what? The comments have all but disappeared. The little club of trash-mouths, none of whom could have spelled or defined byline, suddenly found they had nothing to say that was worth putting their name to.
This intelligent trend, although it reinvents the wheel, is getting some momentum. More and more media have noticed that the trolls set back discourse rather than enhancing it. They've seen that monotonous rants and cliquish behaviour are the common threads of all news comment boards. The rage of such people is both predictable and boring. All but the most incompetent news editors or producers want to avoid both. The solution is reasonably simple. If you want to play in the pool, either sign your name or dig your own pool. (Here, I've preferred the second course.)
Where this reform has happened, the initial silence is astounding. We can hope that those who have both the courage of their convictions, and courage, will begin offering their signed thoughts in public online forums. That, and not the anonymous courage of the mob, is what democracy should offer.
Meanwhile, I'm actually going to say something nice about a media outlet. It's not remarkable that it's a newspaper, but it is amazing that it's The Salem Evening News. A couple of dog's lives ago, when I was in PR on the North Shore, my relations with that paper were, well, uneven.
One of the dead weights that keeps Internet news from achieving maturity is the anonymous comment column. Done, I suppose, in the name of open access, it has really set journalism back 175 years, to a time when most news was anonymous.
Not long ago, the comments in the Salem News online edition made Fox news comment forums smell like free sample day at the perfume counter. People with something thoughtful to say would sooner dive into an open sewer than post a comment to this private club of garbage-mouthed trolls. In my professional relations with the paper years ago, their ethics had sometimes seemed a bit situational. But now they've put on their white hats and gone riding out with the posse. Posts to the comments column must now have a verifiable name and address attached, just as letters to the editor have done for over a century. Good on you, Salem News: the air already smells cleaner.
Guess what? The comments have all but disappeared. The little club of trash-mouths, none of whom could have spelled or defined byline, suddenly found they had nothing to say that was worth putting their name to.
This intelligent trend, although it reinvents the wheel, is getting some momentum. More and more media have noticed that the trolls set back discourse rather than enhancing it. They've seen that monotonous rants and cliquish behaviour are the common threads of all news comment boards. The rage of such people is both predictable and boring. All but the most incompetent news editors or producers want to avoid both. The solution is reasonably simple. If you want to play in the pool, either sign your name or dig your own pool. (Here, I've preferred the second course.)
Where this reform has happened, the initial silence is astounding. We can hope that those who have both the courage of their convictions, and courage, will begin offering their signed thoughts in public online forums. That, and not the anonymous courage of the mob, is what democracy should offer.
Labels: media criticism, online comment forums
posted by Uncle | 00:34
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