Some sites have responded by devoting substantial time and effort to monitoring and editing comments, but we’d rather put our resources into the journalism that brings readers to National Journal in the first place. So, today we’ll join the growing number of sites that are choosing to forgo public comments on most stories.
via Why We’re Changing Our Comments Policy – NationalJournal.com.
I had been noticing that more news websites were suddenly without comment sections or did not have them to begin with. It seemed silly since a good and active comment section meant more hits which means a site for profit can earn more income, but I went Occam and figured it was just plain stupidity rather than an active way to suppress the free flow of ideas. It seems now that it was that indeed.
It is quite indicative that certain political inclinations define debate as a monologue on their side which everybody is allowed to shut up and take it. That places like Gun Controls Organizations like Moms Demand, Brady, etc will ban anybody who even hints at supporting the Second Amendment is not new and we get our good kicks out of it. But when News organizations, alleged bastions of Free Speech decide that contrary opinions and even hateful speech is a no-no just because it hurts their pretty ears and make writers feel unloved, what we are seeing is an attempt to return to the old days of having to send letters to the editor via Pony Express and a basically unchallenged propaganda machine that sides with one political side of the equation.
But as with Dead Tree Media, this strategy will also fail and bring less revenue, something that very few News organizations can afford. I really do not mind seeing them collapse and fade away as they have failed their readership by not doing what they are supposed to do in an era where information comes from many sources and can be fact-checked by thousands of people.
The era of monopolized media enterprises is over. The Robber Barons of The News are as much gone as the old owners of railroads. Just as the car killed the locomotive, the Internet killed the newspapers and its culture of controlling the masses.
Hat Tip Legal Insurrection.
I notice your comment policy. Don’t we all do a little “censoring” now and then? Have you banned any one? What “political inclination” are you?
1) Don’t we all do a little “censoring” now and then?
Yes. But here is the very occasional exception. Usually the idiots help confirm point I was making in the post.
2) Have you banned any one?
Yes, I think since I opened the Blog I have a total of 8 Trolls in the Ban pen.
3) What “political inclination” are you?
conservative/libertarian with a dash of berserker when properly ticked off.
Note: there are a bunch of IPs banned but that was done by the Blog security software due to malicious attacks.
I just adore it when a ‘news’ organization goes no comment!
Nah, they’ll do this again, only harder, when net neutrality dies and .gov ensures third party stuff (blogs and the like) get throttled into nonexistence while controlling the official sources.
Bam! That’s how you move up the watch list.