During a Washingtonpost.com chat today, the site's executive editor, Jim Brady, answered readers questions about the chain of events that led him to close and remove all comments to a posting regarding ombudsman Deborah Howell. See here for the history. A couple highlights from today's chat:
Asked why all comments were removed, even those which were well-argued, Brady said:
"There were lots of good posts, and over the next few days, we'll go back through them and restore the ones that did not violate our rules, though we're still going to leave comments off on that blog for the time being."
Brady addressed charges that the paper was attempting to "silence" its critics:
"How has The Post 'silenced its critics'? We're having a discussion right now in which -- believe me -- I can assure you there are more critics than supporters. We shut down comments on one blog on a site than has 30. You can e-mail or snail mail letters to the editor. Deborah's e-mail is available on the site. There are plenty of avenues to critique what happens at the newspaper or web site. We don't have an obligation to keep every one of those avenues open if we run into problems like we did yesterday."
On what steps the Post.com will take in the future, Brady notes:
"Too early to tell. We need to look at how we're staffed to handle comments, especially in cases where's there's been a concerted effort to flood us with comments in a short period of time. We also need to look at the technology, specifically how much weeding out of offensive content can be automated, etc. To be honest, the experience we've had since we launched blogs a year ago has been very positive, but we found out this week we're not equipped technically or personnel-wise to handle a flood of problematic email."
Overall, the chat was an encouraging step in getting past the ugliness of yesterday's episode. It appears likely that Howell will address the subject once again in this weekend's paper. That should be required reading.
Post.com Says Some Howell Comments Will Be Restored
/ CBS News
During a Washingtonpost.com chat today, the site's executive editor, Jim Brady, answered readers questions about the chain of events that led him to close and remove all comments to a posting regarding ombudsman Deborah Howell. See here for the history. A couple highlights from today's chat:
Asked why all comments were removed, even those which were well-argued, Brady said:
Brady addressed charges that the paper was attempting to "silence" its critics:On what steps the Post.com will take in the future, Brady notes:
Overall, the chat was an encouraging step in getting past the ugliness of yesterday's episode. It appears likely that Howell will address the subject once again in this weekend's paper. That should be required reading.