The New York Times Keeps Up with the Times
November 8th, 2007
Oh, what a brave new world wide web we live in.
The New York Times has waded further into the tumultuous ocean of online discussion, and its writers are both excited and wary.
In his column, the Times’ Public Editor Clark Hoyt ruminates on the recent ability of readers to leave comments on actual articles, and not just blog posts. Comments must meet discerning guidelines to be accepted by moderators – they must be “coherent, on point, not obscene or abusive, and not a personal attack.” But still, as their experience with the blogs go, things can still slip through the editorial cracks. For example, one reader left a now removed comment on the Lede blog that said, Have all the displaced ILLEGALS from the FIRES Move into the TIMES NYC HQ Building … and let them urinate in the halls like they do infront [sic] of most every Home Depot in all the rest of the USA.
It’s comments like this that leads many bloggers to approve of the moderation. The NotionsCapital blog thinks these type of comments proliferate because of the anonymity the web provides, and wonders if they shouldn’t go even further. “What newspaper would print a “Letter to the Editor” without confirming the identity of the letter-writer?” it wrote. “It is time to apply the same standard to reader replies on the Web?”
By Mike Muller on November 8, 2007, 9:12 amIn category: Tech, nextNY | 1 Comment »


While crime citywide heads down, hate crime has increased nearly 21 percent this year.