Yesterday, when the Inquirer broke the story that four people accused retired Daily News sports columnist Bill Conlin of abusing them as children, Philly.com took what has become, for us, a routine step for a story of this nature:
We turned off readers’ ability to comment on those articles.
By default, commenting is allowed on staff-written stories and columns, but there are some types of content where we do not allow commenting, including obituaries (where readers often have the option of signing a moderated online guestbook) and wire stories. But we often – not always, but often – turn off commenting on stories involving crimes, especially molestation or sex crimes.
Why do we do this? Part of the reason is that these stories are particularly sensitive. Comments can impact serious legal proceedings for the victims and the defendants. The other part of the reason is painful: the comments on those stories can be particularly nasty, blaming the victim or reverting to racist or sexist stereotypes. They don’t add to the conversation and they hurt the victims.
So, in those cases, we turn commenting off. We did this on the first Jerry Sandusky stories; we did this on Kensington Strangler stories; we do this on far less attention-grabbing stories. Not always, but often.
I should add: Personally, I am in favor of commenting on news stories online. For a long time, the news conversation was one-sided, and the best readers who wanted to respond to a story could hope for is to perhaps get one letter to the editor published from the many received. We published a lot, and readers published almost nothing.
In a lot of cases, those comments have been positive additions to our coverage. I will never forget when our commenters revealed that a local school board was posting edited video transcripts of its school board meetings. The comments led to coverage, and the school board quickly reversed its position and posted the full video.
However, I am heartbroken by how some have chosen to use this platform. So, for now, when we have to, we use the crude tool of turning comments off.
But this story is also unusual because it involves a former employee. Readers have said that they want to be able to talk about it, and we want to ensure we are as transparent as possible regarding this story.
We have heard our readers, and we have added commenting to the stories (join in here).
This commenting is highly moderated. We’re devoting special staffing to it, and we’ll keep it up as this story plays out.
And in the long term, we are devoted to finding a better solution to commenting. Right now, we are testing a new way to comment requiring Facebook logins (you can see a test of that on staff-produced articles in our Entertainment section now; here’s an example.)
We’re hoping that requiring the use of real names will encourage better commenting behavior and improve the tone of our comments; assuming this test is successful – and so far, it’s encouraging – we will roll this out to other sections of our site.
In the meantime, thank you for reading. Feel free to leave us a comment below on these changes, or email me directly here.
Wendy Warren
Editor
Philly.com
- After The report of Jerry Sandusky's Alleged criminal behavior, the Philadelphia press, and media, particularly "Daily News Live", took absolutely no prisoners, as they rushed to attack him with such ferocity,their collective moral indignation had no bounds.
It's very interesting now, when one of their own has been accused of behavior equally as repugnant, yet their silence is deafening....— Phiggles - Agreed. Let the people speak and moderate only the insane comments. And Dont require posting via Facebook! There is a faction of the public that hate writers and Bill Conlin in particular-Conlin and his ilk are paid for their opinion, and Philly sports fans are never at a loss to be combative. I respect Conlin's writing and his witty sarcasm and its a tragedy for everyone involved-peers, fans, and victims. But victim's and their families have a responsibility to society to report this kind of behavior-40 years later is not fulfilling that responsibility.— shirleyf
- Rick and Shirley: Thanks for the comments. In this case, we were careful to do what we usually do with these stories - treating this like any other allegation. In fact, I was involved with the decision to turn off comments on the initial Sandusky stories as well. We do want to make sure we are responsible to the victims (and the alleged perpetrators) and when molestation is the accusation, we are very cautious. But I hear your point, and that's why we worked up the current moderation platform for this story.— Wendy Warren
- Wendy,thanks for replying to all of the comments today. I'm sure you will be busy returning the comments but this is a good move. There will be some comments that aren't justified but I applaud the reversal. — rick2657
- I could be wrong...but almost any other website that I visit, either allows comments on all stories, or just doesn't allow them at all. allowing us to comment on some, but not others is simply your way of silencing us. For instance..why were no comments allowed on the 4 part hit job about the pipelines? There were probably hundreds of people who would've posted on that one.— soccerdad1150
- Wendy-as a reader of the DN for over 30 years, and an online reader since the beginning, it would have made more sense to allow comments, and moderate. The girl who went missing from Delco and was found Dead in Camden had a sea of comments that had to be hard for the family to read. It just seems too subjective. And who gave the green light for todays headline? Google "shocker" and you'll see how insane it is to approve that headline and then speak about being "cautious".— shirleyf
Comment removed.- Thanks, Soccerdad and Shirley. We appreciate you reading. And seriously, we are not trying to silence anyone - but we are taking pains to handle this story with care. The subject matter is sensitive and the victims are putting themselves out there. Frankly, I wish we could give every story this level of attention and moderation in the comments.— Wendy Warren
- The newspaper should push legislation to remove the statute of limitations in these types of cases. Otherwise, Conlin (who is about Sandusky's age), is free without having to register as a sex offender.
The Catholic church already has 37 pedophile priests (according to this year's grad jury report) who are also Sandusky's age, and at least 16 of them are completely unaccounted for. One, named Fr Cudemo, got a 12 year girl pregnant and took her for an abortion. He had sex with at least 17 others. He's free somewhere, at Jerry Sandusky's age, on a Catholic pension.
Good luck keeping your children away from these predators in Philly.
Legislation is being held up by Rep Marsico, and there is a priest named Guy Marsico who is an accused priest in Philly. Think that has anything to do with it?— 617patrick - Although I see my opinion won't change your policies, it is refreshing to know the Editor actually read my comment and responded. Thanks.— soccerdad1150
- Soccerdad, thank YOU for reading us.— Wendy Warren
- Wendy: I am a "news junkie" and post on numerous websites. There are ways to deal with people who post inappropriate comments.
Allow the users to flag those comments, so that you don't have to have an employee sitting at the computer full time monitoring comments.— duggy - I also emailed this morning - believing on this story you needed to change your policy - thank you for doing so. I do appreciate when you restrict commenting; and am always saddened by how nasty people can be. Thanks!— Pastor Lee
- how come comments weren't turned off on all the penn state articles then? come on daily news, we all know you just are uncomfortable with hearing people call out your organization and one of your colleague. that is THE ONLY reason why you turned comments off.— Ryan
- News | Sports | Business | What's Happening | Restaurants & Food | Entertainment | Living | Marketplace | Jobs
The right move would have been to allow comments immediately.Take the direct hit then deal with the results.The silence of the reporters is not acceptable,The management blinked and relented topublicopinion. Your are a forum and conduit for the public!