Gannett papers allowing online reader comments seem to keep adding to the legal fine print right before the "storychat" link. From The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y.:"It is a condition of your use of the comment features associated with the forums and story chat that you do not: Use the site to post or transmit any unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane or indecent information of any kind, including without limitation any transmissions constituting or encouraging conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any local, state, national or international law. You alone are responsible for the material you post or send."
Holy Terms of Service Agreement! What's missing? I know! "We include all this legal mumbo-jumbo because we've abandoned responsibility for patrolling a big part of own website. Why? To save money in a desperate bid to boost Gannett's stock price."
Got an offensive or just-plain-crazy comment that made it past your Gannett site's filters? Use this link to e-mail suggestions. See Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the sidebar, upper right. Or leave a note in the moderated comments section, below.[Image: today's Journal News, Newseum]
Actually, as far as I know, all Gannett properties monitor their storychat quite regularly. However, to monitor every post before it goes public would be a real asinine waste of time. No website I know of does that. Does yours?
ReplyDeleteSo, comments will be public before someone can look at them, and they could be libelous or slanderous. That's what the terms of service state, that if you post it, you're responsible for it. There's no copyeditor looking at your post before it goes live.
However, someone WILL look at it eventually, and if it is in violation of the terms of service, it will be deleted.
I'm confident that most reader comments on Gannett websites are never read by editors -- before, OR after they're published. As to websites that use real live human beings to screen comments, I believe both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal do that, which is one reason why their comments are usually on topic. And on my blog: Yes, I read and OK all comments before they get published. I've caught some pretty horrendous stuff that way.
ReplyDeleteYou might be confident that reader comments aren't read by editors at Gannett sites, but you would be still be wrong, at least at the metros.
ReplyDeleteDid Gannett hire any new editors to review the comments? No ... but since editors are exempt employees, it doesn't matter how many hours they put in - and they ARE putting in the hours to read the story chat.
Trust me, there are still people in Gannett who care about the product they put out, including on the web, despite however much downsizing is forced on them.