Inlander Looks At Jacobson Suit

Above, Jim Campbell political cartoon for Pacific Northwest Inlander article by Chris Stein, entitled: “Trouble for Trolls: An online commenter may be about to learn the hard way that even on the Internet, no one is truly anonymous.”

Chris Stein of the Pacific Northwest Inlander penned a lengthy piece about the ongoing case involving former Kootenai County GOP Chairwoman Tina Jacobson’s attempt to discover the identity of a HucksOnline commenter she claims defamed her. It includes:

O nline commenting started as an offshoot of letters to the editor, says Lucy Dalglish, former executive director of the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press. “In this day and age, news organizations care just as much about how readers react to the news as what the news is,” Dalglish says. And if more users are engaged with the comment boards, maybe they’ll click on more ads, Dalglish says, thereby brining newspapers more money. Despite the kerfuffle in Idaho, Graham says the paper won’t do anything differently with their commenting system. “We think that helps the community conversation,” Graham says. That doesn’t mean he’s happy with the comments that follows many of the Spokesman’s articles. “The level of civil discourse is often very disappointing, to put it mildly.” (Full story here)

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