Beware The Internet Rabble! New York Times Web Site Opens Itself Up For Reader Comments
November 5, 2007 -- 10:30 AM EST // //
In his column yesterday, New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt offered his readers a startling revelation: In what is perhaps a milestone for the paper, its editors have ever so carefully edged The Times further into the Internet age by deciding to open up the newspaper's online articles to public comments.
Hoyt reports that the paper began doing this with little fanfare last week, and even has opened up some of its editorials to reader feedback. And in an intriguing detail, he explains the extraordinary lengths that the paper has gone to in order to prevent obscene or vitriolic comments from getting through: The paper has hired "four part-time staffers, to screen all reader submissions before posting them, an investment unheard of in today’s depressed newspaper business environment."
Why such lengths? Hoyt suggests that the move is all about protecting the paper's "dignified" tone from the Internet rabble. And it is amusing to note the degree to which Hoyt and the Times editors he spoke with are wringing their hands as they contemplate the fateful step of throwing open the gates to the hordes beyond.
But it's worth noting that the caution is justified on another level. The paper's editors have to know that right-wing bloggers and talk-show hosts will be relentlessly scouring the Times Web site for nutjob anti-troops or pro-assassination reader comments that they can use to depict the paper as a bastion of fifth columnists who are trying to destroy America from within, just as Bill O'Reilly did to DailyKos recently.
The Times, of course, is already perhaps the highest-profile target in the country for this sort of stuff, a target so reliable for stirring up the right-wing base that even the White House has repeatedly gone after it. Recall that the wingers, with an assist from Republicans in Congress and even the President himself, successfully managed to turn a clerical error made by an ad sales rep selling an ad to MoveOn into national news for days on end. So here's predicting that an attack on the paper's patriotism based on reader comments will erupt before the end of the month.
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