News from the Plains: All this RED can make you BLUE
We got your comments right here!
by Barry Friedman
And the circle jerk just got smaller.
All commenters will be required to use their first and last names in addition to the city or town in which they live. They can also choose to post comments through their Facebook account. Anonymous comments will no longer be published.
In the
Tulsa World, though, many of those who commented anonymously, those legions of malcontents, wannabe seditionists, angry white men, really angry white men, really,
really angry white men, and those who never tired of writing the word
Obummer or
Freeeeeeedom said they would never post again.
And tears of joy could be heard throughout the land.
Would be good to show you some of these comments, but the World purged not only the 2.6-million comments it received since 2007, but also scrubbed the comments on the story announcing the purge.
Ballpark figure: 2.53 million of those posts had to do with guns, Agenda 21, and the arrival of Jesus; the others want Stoops to throw more.
Just as well for some.
Good friend Ginnie Graham wrote in her column, "It has led to the most mean, profane, crude, racist, sexist and outrageous personal attacks I’ve encountered."
And that's before she checked their spelling.
“We believe this will help change the tone of our conversations online to a more civil discussion of happenings in our community,” said Bill Masterson Jr., publisher of the Tulsa World. “Online sites have struggled with anonymous comments for many years and we believe it’s time for the Tulsa World to raise the standard in our community.”
Bet the Under.
Recently, the World was bought by Warren Buffett’s BH Media, which has been making changes throughout the newsroom. There have been layoffs, including key people in editorial, and an admission by Masterson that the paper may have lost its way.
And this is a far more important story.
I received a few notes asking for clarification when I mentioned in my first column that the editorial position was going to reflect the community in which it serves.
My reason for that statement was the result of taking a hard look at the data we develop about our readers and our community. It clearly shows that the community perceives (right or wrong) that our editorial position is too far to the left and is not reflective of what is consistent with Tulsa and Oklahoman's values.
Perception is reality and it is our job to fix that.
But more important than being known as a "right" leaning paper or a "left" leaning paper is the desire to make sure that we are credible, thought-provoking, and fair.
So you're going to correct a problem you admit doesn't exist? And who exactly is this community, anyway?
Oklahoma came the closest of any state in the union to actually enacting a birther bill that would have kept President Obama off the state ballot in 2012. Is this the community? Are these the values you wish the World had reflected more fairly? In retrospect, do you believe it would have been better for the paper's editorials to have highlighted these groups' patriotism in a more "thought-provoking" way and not denounced them for the racists they were? Or maybe it's the community of birthers, tenthers, and the more than 15,000 Oklahomans who signed the secession petition that have suffered from the paper's bias? Are these the communities who keep telling you the World leans too far to the left?
You've been listening to them? You're going to "fix" the paper for them?
Far more important to me than what commenters--anonymous or not--say in the paper is what the paper says in the paper.
Tulsa World, Berkshire Hathaway