Personnaly, I am sometimes reserved on the possibility given to the reader to leave a comment. On this plan, I make however a difference between a blog and a site of information.
A blog has an appropriate logic in which to leave comments is a part of the use. The author of the blog has always the possibility of answering a comment : to complete it, to moderate it...
But I do not like very much comments on the « traditional » information websites (newspapers, TV).
To illustrate it, a personal experience in Belgium where I live and work. Soon three years ago, I had to covered on a news item which was going to become a very big justicial case in Belgium : the Lhermitte Case
A personal experience
Working for the belgian press agency Belga, I am in charge of covering the judicial domain in my region. The February 28th 2007, a mother - named Genevieve Lhermitte - killed her five children sand then wanted to commit suicide. In a small city : Nivelles. I do my job, and I go rapidly there to collect news (police, mayor, prosecutor,...) But I did not realize the scale that this news item was going to take in only a few hours.
Very fast, the press widely covered facts. Including the international press. Every dispatch or article was widely put on websites. With the possibility to leave a comment...
To explain the facts, all the life of this family, this mother loving her children, her husband coming from Morocco, was made public. Genevieve Lhermitte's trial took place in December 2008. All the Belgian press was there (newspapers, TV and radios). But also representatives of foreigner media. Genevieve Lhermitte was sentenced to the life imprisonment. But the affair is not finished.
A cesspool ?
A cesspool ?
This week, for example, we have learn that a director wanted to realize a movie inspired by this infanticide. As journalist, I have collected reactions: lawyers, production company... Like other news concerning this affair, the information was widely covered in the media. So newspapers put dispatches or articles on their website. And readers have had the possibility of leaving comments...to give sometimes their own vision or their « truth ».
The expression « cesspool » (or in French « café du commerce ») seems to me appropriate. Persons who did not attend the trial rewrite the truth according to what they have readed in the past, consider themselves as a psychologist, certain comments contain racism,...
I agree that this case is maybe a bad or extreme example. But I ask the question: what is the interest to leave the possibility to the reader to post a comment, if no journalist is there to moderate the debate?
Posts
My response to your question is that a media house should assign professionals to moderate comments particularly on sensitive stories such as the ones you cited.While I advocate for free interaction with readers,I also think that it's not optional for an organization of even an individual blogger to allow "un censored" comments. Not everyone respects freedom of speech.
ReplyDeleteTerry
I also think that prohibit a comment must be an exceptionnal case (for example, in case of racism, xenophobia, insulting,...). So a "label" with rules is often use on information website and blogs. The reader can post a comment but He knows the limits of the "label"
ReplyDelete"Between a rock and a hard place": on one hand you want to avoid any tregedies instigated by comments and public opinion. On the other hand you want to practice the freedom of expression .... perhaps a keen and reasonable moderation of comments is the a relatively good way to go.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this good example Sebastien. If the online publications applied the same standards to comments as they did to letters to the editor, perhaps this wouldn't have gotten so out of hand. I've included a quote from my publication's letters policy here
ReplyDeletehttp://culturalmulatto.blogspot.com/2010/01/pros-and-cons-of-commenting.html
It includes provisions for unattributed quotes, factual inaccuracies and insulting language.
@Ruzanna : you arrive almost at the same conclusion I wanted to arrive with my post : a moderation can be a solution. No ?
ReplyDelete@Lucy : your analogy with letters to the editor seems to me interresting, and could be adapted to a blog or a website