PatrickH: Racist Post Spreads @ Press

40 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

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  hollykb on March 18 at 8:34 a.m.

  Ugh. It’s so simple — they just need to moderate the comments. But I suppose they don’t have enough people to do that. So, the whole site suffers.

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  MamaJD on March 18 at 9:05 a.m.

  They moderate anti-Hagadone comments and comments that call Mary Souza names. The lack of action on racist comments appears to be toleration and not a matter of slow moderators.

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  Cis on March 18 at 12:10 p.m.

  I don’t know why they don’t as their sister paper the Bee does

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  Kage_Mann on March 18 at 12:20 p.m.

  Does Mike Patrick attack the Spokeman Review?No.So, why
  attack the Press with another PR blog?Is the economy so bad,that now DFO’s trying to destroy the Press? Can’t we all live in Harmony together in peace? (((sigh))).

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  PatrickH on March 18 at 1:23 p.m.

  Kage,

  First, the Press and its columnists have went after the SR, but its not even an issue of “attacking” the Press. They have and continue to allow comments and links to racist materials. I’m not refering to the snide, stupid little liberal vs conservative comments. I’m refering to comments about violence against Jewish people. Music videos that spout hate. You can’t yell fire in a crowded room and a responsible paper of record has a duty to not publish materials intended to insite violence against minorities. Mr. Patrick doesn’t seem to understand that, or he does understand it and doesn’t care. Either way its wrong.

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  DFO on March 18 at 1:59 p.m.

  >why attack the Press with another PR blog?Is the economy so bad,that now DFO’s trying to destroy the Press?<

  Kage; I am both a columnist/blogger for the SR and a 25-year resident of Coeur d’Alene. I have a fairly free hand to call them as I see them in my first role. As a long-time resident, I’m embarrassed to death that the town’s newspaper continues to allow racist and defamatory comments online to be published. Why aren’t you bothered by the nature of such posts?

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  cantyoureadthesigns on March 18 at 2:39 p.m.

  “Why aren’t you bothered by the nature of such posts?”

  Isn’t it obvious?

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  OrangeTV on March 18 at 2:55 p.m.

  The racist links are still up over there. I’m about to compose an email to the editor letting him know this is unacceptable how embarrassing those comment sections are for our town and requesting that something is done immediately to make the racist/homophobic posts stop and/or go away. I suggest others take a few minutes and do the same.

• 

  Cis on March 18 at 2:56 p.m.

  The other part is…. this isn’t just a local paper with local people reading their blog…

  This, like the HBO, is read nation wide. It is googled by subject. We all are.. so if someone wants to see where hate lives… and google that.. by subject… and up pops CDA PRESS…
  BINGO… no wonder the people don’t think we have changed even after Butler and others are gone..

• 

  DFO on March 18 at 3:53 p.m.

  I’ve deleted part of a thread that went off the tracks re: charges of racism, bigot and ignorance. We don’t do that here any more, boys.

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  hmoffsuite on March 18 at 4:00 p.m.

  DFO> Question: Why doesn’t the Press just monitor the site like you do? They don’t have the staff? If they can’t monitor the site they ought to shut it down. Isn’t there a degree of liability for being an enabler?

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  DFO on March 18 at 4:16 p.m.

  >Question: Why doesn’t the Press just monitor the site like you do? They don’t have the staff? If they can’t monitor the site they ought to shut it down. Isn’t there a degree of liability for being an enabler? — MMOffsuite<

  At this point, the liability falls on the poster, as long as the online newspaper makes no move to try to edit the copy. That’s why I pull an entire post rather than edit it here. The day is coming when media sites will be responsible for the online comments. But that day hasn’t arrived yet.

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  Sisyphus on March 18 at 4:17 p.m.

  Whoa whoa whoa. I made no such allegation here and I never do without facts to back it up. I didn’t even support the accuser’s allegation knowing how itchy your trigger finger is? Why did I get deleted? You’re deleting threads now?

  hmo, they want the government to police it for them. The answer to your last question is yes.

• 

  Cis on March 18 at 4:21 p.m.

  Also maybe the policy is made by the Publisher….
  As Dave Keyes has it at the Bee …… comments will be posted after ok’d by paper, or something to that effect…
  I know a comment I made was posted an hour after I had put it up.

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  DFO on March 18 at 4:24 p.m.

  Sisyphus; I deleted an inappropriate thread within a thread. Your post referring to the others posts may have been collateral damage. I have deleted only one other comment in the last month before today. I don’t consider that an itchy finger.

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  PatrickH on March 18 at 4:28 p.m.

  Dave,

  While there may not be a legal liability(yet) isn’t there a moral and ethical requirement? The Press is the paper of record for several cities in the area. The definition is pretty straightforward:

  Newspaper of record is a term that may refer to either of the following:

  1) any publicly available newspaper that has been authorized by a government to publish public or legal notices.
  2) any major newspaper that has a large circulation and whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered professional and typically authoritative.

  Doesn’t that come with any ethical or moral responsibilities to represent the region in a responsible manor, and lot allow their pages or website be used to promote racism? Would the Press allow an ad to be placed with the kind of statements in the link? Probably not, then why is it okay to place it on their website?

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  Dennis on March 18 at 4:30 p.m.

  Sis, I’ll take the blame for your post getting deleted. Collateral damage is very accurated.

  But at least I got to make my point!

  :-)

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  hmoffsuite on March 18 at 4:31 p.m.

  Sis. >> “hmo, they want the government to police it for them”

  I didn’t think they had liberals working there.

• 

  Sisyphus on March 18 at 5:33 p.m.

  Well Dave you used to be quite selective. I’m sure that’s all it was, collateral damage. As they’re often fond of pointing out the first amendment does protect racist speech. I guess the contrary isn’t true here.

  Dennis you have a very keen grasp on human nature and affording the proper terminology to the situations you observe. hmo, even though we’ve been discussing Republican Representative Hartgen’s bill on policing the internet for weeks your select-o-vision missed it and you kick the Hannity verbiage right on out of your keyboard again. There’s a term for that too but one must be circumspect lest one get collateralized.

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  hmoffsuite on March 18 at 5:44 p.m.

  It was a joke, Sis. Get off the coffee, man.

• 

  Sam on March 18 at 8:37 p.m.

  I don’t want to bash anyone here or get in a fight, but there’s a large misnomer in here about yelling fire in a theater versus strict hate speech.

  One of them is allowed in this country. That is, hate speech is allowed. Threatening mass public safety, however, is not protected by the FIrst Amendment.

  That issue is technically 1st Amendment 101, but lawyers and judges could always change those standards in the future. But as of now, hate speech is flat-out allowed in America per the U.S. Supreme Court.

  I understand people’s issue with this post because it’s horrendous and disgusting and nobody need be objective about something like that, but at the same time I think people should realize the limited resources the Cd’A Press has to do the job. They have very few reporters (who should, when they can, be checking their story comments not only to make sure people aren’t being idiots … and they will anyway … but to glean story ideas, tips, and to be transparent and have community conversation, because reporters are part of the community, too) and you can’t expect them to sit there all day checking out threads.

  The issues with volunteer moderators are fair, but nobody here has their side of the story. The issue with the Press is that they never offer up their side of the story. So there is a different standard of expectation. The Press staff believe that the best offense is a good shut the eff up. That is not the way to do it. If people are concerned, they should be in the story comments and blogs talking to the public and letting them know why decisions are made, why coverage was a certain way, even why this racist video was up for hours at a time. For me, I think it’s absolutely fair for them to say they just didn’t have the time to do it.

  I doubt it’s feasible or practically applicable, but I suggest they look into commenter-generated moderation. The paper I work for, and the McClatchy chain, has a sysem where a certain number of posters dislike a comment, for specifics reasons (such as hate speech or profanity) and the comment is deprecated (it can’t be seen by anyone unless they purposely click on it) and awaits moderation by online staff.

  I don’t know if they can do that.

  DFO is right, though. There is a fine legal line with comments. You basically either must flat-out kill them or keep them. If you edit a comment, you become responsible for it. Current federal law provides immunity to the owner of any type of comment system, like a message board, for what occurs on those comments. If someone defamed Mike Kennedy the person would be responsible, not the message board owner. It’s a very specific law, not necessarily a blanket 1st Amendment protection handed down from the authors of the U.S. Constitution.

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  Nick_Adams on March 18 at 9:12 p.m.

  Gee, Sam, thanks for the lecture. I didn’t read where anyone was questioning whether or not this was protected speech or not. The issue was/is, simply, whether or not the CDA Press should allow this on their site and what people can do to show their opposition to this kind of garbage.

  Of course hate-speech is allowed. That doesn’t mean we have to just accept it and move along. Ignoring racism/hate has never worked on a societal level. I commed Patrick and OTV for their proactive approach to fighting the paper’s “tolerance” of the comments.

  As MamaJD pointed out, they’re quick to edit anti-Hagadone and anti-MMQC posts, so don’t give me any crap that “we just don’t have the resources” is a valid defense.

  By ignoring the racist/homophobic posts, the Press is tacitly endorsing the content. The 1st Amendment argument is invalid. It’s about ethics and standards. My experiences with the Press management has shown me that they view both as situational.

• 

  Sam on March 18 at 10:00 p.m.

  Sorry, Nick, I was responding to a previous OTV post from the day. This is like the third post this day about the same topic. DFO is clearly out for blood on this, as is OTV. I appreciate the discussion, but it’s in too many posts to keep track.

  I wasn’t trying to lecture, just make something clear.

  My apologies it ended up on the wrong thread.

• 

  Sam on March 18 at 10:01 p.m.

  P.S ~ Patrick and OTV are the same person.

• 

  Sam on March 18 at 10:01 p.m.

  P.P.S. ~ I’ll give you any crap I want to. That’s what I do, dude.

• 

  cantyoureadthesigns on March 18 at 10:06 p.m.

  Get thee to law school, Sam.

  The 1st Amendment has got NOTHING to do with whether a PRIVATELY OWNED media outlet deletes offensive comments, or not.

  The 1st Amendment is a prohibition on the government reigning in speech. And when it’s the government reining in a media outlet, then that’s the issue of Prior Restraint, which does come up from time to time, usually in regards to national security issues.

  You, me, Tom, Dick, and Harry can stand on a street corner and preach hate speech all day long, and the government can’t do anything about it. We could even, generally, go to a public park crowded with people and do they same thing.

  The Mess and the S/R operate under wholly different rules, and yes, they can if they want, allow OR delete hate speech comments.

  They are justified in deleting such, especially, in the case of the Mess, where their comment policy is right there in front of you when you comment, and I’d sure a reasonable (man) person would judge the vile hate speech we’re talking about violates the Mess’s stated comments policy.

  Seems to what people here are saying is that the BUSINESS decision of the Mess to not properly monitor their comments in alignment with their stated policy, is wrong, and they are pointing that out in clear and strong terms.

• 

  OrangeTV on March 18 at 10:18 p.m.

  Sam said >> P.S ~ Patrick and OTV are the same person.

  No we’re not. He’s Patrick H. and I’m Patrick J.

• 

  Cindy_H on March 18 at 10:35 p.m.

  A powerful plethora of prose-worthy Patricks :-)

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  Sam on March 19 at 3:52 p.m.

  CYRTS (I believe I know who you are), weren’t you at Smith’s blog the other day?: Just to be clear, I was only addressing the standards that were being argued in terms of First Amendment. I didn’t go into the fact that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to a business’s private message boards (but federal law most definitely does address it).

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  Sam on March 19 at 3:52 p.m.

  OTV - thanks for the correction. I had no idea there was more than one Patrick around here. When the heck did that happen?

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  MamaJD on March 19 at 4:07 p.m.

  Sam - there is a policy in place at the Press. It is routinely used on comments that Hagadone Publishing deems necessary.

  This is like a business with a community bulletin board that regularly takes down mundane stuff but leaves up the hate speech as they point to the 1st Amendment. Sure — everyone has a right to express their views but you don’t have a right to do so in a privately owned business unless the owner tolerates your presence. Just because someone wants to post a hate speech message doesn’t force the business owner to provide the space and the push pin to do so.

  I also have the right to choose where I spend my money through subscriptions and advertising dollars. I will not be spending either at the Press until this is clamped down on. And I will be encouraging others to do the same.

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