When Comments Attack

There are plenty of headaches for media companies large and small; the economy certainly ranks as number one, with a close number two figuring how to ride out the wave of seismic changes hitting the journalism and communications landscape. But the one that may provide the biggest heartburn strikes directly at the First Amendment.

I like to point out there's a reason why freedom of speech is the First amendment; after all, the freedom to petition for redress of our grievances, assemble with others of like-mind, even the particular (or peculiar) way we choose to worship all stem from what many Americans take for granted.

This right of expressing our opinion runs deep in the American psyche, even if most Americans would be hard-pressed to actually point out what most of our constitutionally-protected rights actually are.

Which brings us to commenting features on the web.

This feature of letting it fly is nothing new to newspapers, but they've kept it in check by having an editorial page editor sift through letters to decide which were worthy of jumping through the journalistic salmon ladder we call publishing. Some might even be good enough to warrant treatment as a column, although that was still under the control of the editor. That's the way Op/Ed pages in newspapers still work, even today.

Talk radio (and our fresh-faced cousins, talk TV) follow in a similar vein. When you listen to Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck or even Howie, your couple minutes of airtime can depend on whether a producer thinks you are worthy or even something arbitrary such as being caller number four when there's only time left for three.

The web is different.

We expect our thoughts to show, immediately, after clicking. Once sent, never recalled. The heat of the moment laid bare, which explains how so many comments are often rude, insensitive, unkind and disrespectful. The send button isn't much of a recall device.

On recent posts to AkronNewsNow stories, especially those dealing with crime and mayoral recalls, we've been treated to occasional glimpses of passionate thought but that also comes with plenty of bile. Some comments, hiding behind the ease of a screen name, call others names they would never use face-to-face.

Calling out someone who has a different opinion as an "idiot" is tame; we've seen some suggest that people suffering from some kind of impairment should be required to wear dog collars and be restrained on leashes. Readers have seen some wish physical harm, even rape, on those targets of their disdain.

We try to remove those posts as quickly as possible because we believe personal attacks, especially those advocating physical harm, have no place on this site. It's no different than considering the discussion you would allow around your dinner table, or in the backyard with a house full of summer barbecue guests: would you express yourself so openly if engaged in a debate with someone just as passionate sitting across from you?

Disagreement over ideas is one thing, but hate disguised as indigestible discourse is another.

Google Is Not The Enemy

It is quite popular these days to condemn all things massive; the federal government taking bigger chunks of our money, big banks getting big bailouts, financial institutions too big to fail, the big three automakers...it's a big list.

Very common to include big media on that list, including perhaps the biggest media company on the face of the planet these days. Google clearly has supplanted big TV, big radio, big newspapers, big magazines and in many cases even the used-to-be big Ma Bell as the top example of companies and organizations.

What makes Google so unique is the way it organizes and shifts the distribution of ideas not only on the web but also for print, broadcast, and mobile.

The Radio Television News Directors Association and Foundation recently honored Google , along with Cokie Roberts of ABC/NPR, Susan Grant of CNN, and the Knight Foundation (represented by Alberto Ibarguen) with a First Amendment Award; it was, behind the scenes, a call that took some courage because some in the old media think they still own freedom of speech. They don't.

Here's what Dr. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said about independent voices for newspapers in particular but also in general how getting to an "accurate truth" is something all of us own.



Post viewing: is it just me or does anyone else find it amazing that as every 60 seconds goes by there are 15 HOURS of video uploaded to YouTube? Wow.

FREE SPEECH: Where Do You Stand?

One of the aftermath issues following the Success Academy shootings in Cleveland is a drill just about every newsroom and journalist goes through -- or should go through.

WKYC's Eric Mansfield blogged about the student who reaped rewards from the checkbook journalists paying for his homemade video shot inside the classroom while a 14-year old fellow student shot outside the classroom, wounding four before taking his own life. A national program shelled out two grand without blinking, Eric reports, and local news shops followed suit (bidding remained in the hundreds) once word got out. WKYC did not join the tragedy auction but did air the video when NBC made it available to network affiliates.

Was it wrong for the student, and the student's mother, do quickly jump on the profit wagon with the blood of his fellow students and teachers still fresh on the hallway floors?

It is not unusual for networks, newspapers or magazines to pay for content; after all, those out-of-town but appearing in-studio guests on programs such as CNN's Larry King and Glenn Beck, or MSNBC's Hard Ball, NBC's Today Show, ABC's Good Morning America, CBS's Morning Show, Fox & Friends -- most of the "real people", non-professional guests don't pay their own way to fly to New York, Washington, or Atlanta and then pop for a night's hotel stay for the pure joy of being on TV. In-studio means someone foots the bill for travel, and then some.

There's a fine line in television between the entertainment division programs and the news division programs; viewers usually can't tell the difference between the hard-driving CNN Showbiz Today or Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood, even as they air on the "news" channel or immediately following a news program. We broadcasters do a pretty good job of making that line fuzzy, and it isn't a stretch to note the public has better things to do with their time than grow sophisticated to easily recognize the difference.

Phil Trexler of the Akron Beacon Journal noted on Friday's NewsNight Akron program it is common practice for the paper to pay "stringer fees", usually a nominal amount. We practice the same policy with stringers and freelancers both in broadcast on WAKR and online on AkronNewsNow with some sports reporters, mostly Jeff Brewer who contributes coverage from pro teams as well as features on high school sports. Jeff is also a blogger on Suburban League athletics).

The newspaper/magazine equivalent to the networks is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for that "shot" of Brittney dropping her child on the sidewalk coming out of Starbucks, or Lindsay stumbling out of a nightclub after rehab. Those photos reap huge rewards just as the video does because the public wants to see those images, despite protests of disgust. In the business, it's the "what's under the sheet?" question: driving past a car wreck, everyone looks to see even though they know it won't be pretty. It isn't one of our finest traits, but it is what it is.

Who's wrong -- the video shooter or the TV/radio/newspaper/website paying for the media?

I find it hard to condemn the young man who shot the Success Academy video or his mother; they had a product in demand and customers willing to pay for it. The responsibility on what we as journalists air, post or publish isn't with the "user generated users" or freelancers providing the content, it is ours as traditional media (newspapers, magazine, radio, TV) or "new" media (Internet) since we weild the editorial decision on what content we believe our respective audiences want.

That decision is complicated and in today's fragmented media world not just one with journalism ethics attached; the differences in acceptance by the wider media audience measured in ratings points, circulation or unique visitor page views places huge economic considerations on those decisions. Also consider the First Amendment provides for very little in the form of regulation (yelling "fire" in crowded theaters, personal health privacy and espionage secrets excepted) for a very good reason: the Founding Fathers opted to put the power in the hands of the people, and not someone deciding for us what we would see and hear.

The market reality is: if viewers, readers and listeners have such widespread revulsion and are repulsed by these images and sounds those airing, publishing or posting the material won't make a living. When most viewers, readers and listeners demand and expect this material those responsible for the editorial decisions must and will weigh the economic consequences along with their best journalistic judgment, citizen or professional.

In our version of democracy, freedom of speech isn't bound by the limits of good taste or family-appropriate values. That decision is left to us, as it should be: I'd rather have a society openly debating excess rather than authority silencing speech.