News-Record.com

Mark, I took down a comment today (your #2 bullet) for the first time in almost a year. It was probably written by a commenter on the Letters blog (his comment there seems to indicate that) and it was very short, although it had lots of !!! marks. He used an expression not properly cited here (or on my blog, or in my vocabulary). I removed it and noted that I had removed it in the comments.

The point is: I took down a senseless comment that was on no topic at all, that was personal and ugly, that used profanity, and that's my right.

Other bloggers are being hit by comment spam and have tools to remove that spam (see scripting.com for Dave's tool to do this and he does it hourly). According to the N&R commenter, I have only 2 readers, so I don't have to worry about comment spam, but others do. I don't think anyone would fault a blogger for taking down (1) ugly or profane comments or (2) spam. Beyond that, critical on-topic comments should not, IMO, be taken down. If that bothers you, you should re-think your reasons for blogging.

My opinions are my own.

Sue: I think SPAM is a no brainer. We occasionally get hit here (even with the super-duper software we use) and will take those down.

What about posts? Is there ever a situation where you can see yourself removing a post from your own site? Is there an occasion that you could think of that we should do so here?

Mark,

I started writing a response to your post here, but it got to be long, so I went ahead and posted it on my own blog.

I still titled it, "To Mark Binker, But Dedicated To Marcus Kindley: On Blogging And Representing."

Thanks for all that you do!

Sincerely,

Hardy

Mark -- I think online credibility is a market-based economy -- with supply and demand dependent on widely-known information and the particular buyers and sellers. That's a good thing. Do as you please: it will all come out in the wash. I just finished reading C.S. Lewis' "The Magician's Nephew" and I have in my mind the passage where Aslan says: "All get what they want, they do not always like it." I would have forgiven, and even admired Kindley if he had said, "You got me. I cringed when I read Ed's criticisms, and I tried to make it go away -- my bad." I've been there -- who hasn't? He wanted to rewrite history, and that's what he got.

Hardy - Wow...that's quite a response...I'm going to have to read it again, probably on Monday.

Sun - Good points. I think re-writing history is probably not a good reason to pull down a post. Is there an acceptable reason? Maybe there's not. You strike me as the type of guy who would proudly archive your flubs and then haul them out for review a few years down the road.

Btw...re: "The Magician's Nephew" I liked the first installments of the Narnia series when I was a kid. I remember the last few books kind of lost their spark for me, but that first one - wow. I think I devoured it in a day.

Mark

I’m glad that you brought up the subject of when, if ever, it’s appropriate for a blogger to remove a post.

A while back, the N&R was foaming at the mouth and publishing blaring front page headlines about secret police operating in Greensboro, carrying out black bag operations. Of course, there were no secret police and no black bag operations, which are by definition illegal.

If fact, the police were doing nothing wrong or out of the ordinary, and were acting exactly as they are supposed to act. But facts don’t really matter when the N&R is hot to portray somebody as racist, in this case the police chief and one division of his department, which was known to anybody who wanted to know about it, including the reporters and editors who were falsely portraying it.

Anyway, during that period, John Robinson put up a post at The Editor’s Log late one afternoon. To the best of my recollection, it was titled “Evolution of a Story.” Something like that. He obviously was very proud of the reporting about the police department and had asked the two reporters involved to provide some background on it.

As I recall, the police reporter, whose name skips my mind, said he had been warned about relying on the word of the principal in this story, an officer under investigation. This officer just happened to have had a private business relationship with a cocaine kingpin, although the N&R mentioned that only incidentally and far into its coverage.

The reporter also had been told that the officer was eager to play the race card. The reporter indicated that he was reluctant about depending on this officer in the beginning but had changed his mind after talking to an anonymous source high in the police department. The reporter went on make a statement about officers “digging up dirt” on other officers, instead of carrying out normal investigative procedures, no evidence of which was presented, but which could be seen as indicating bias on the reporter’s part.

The other reporter, Lorraine Ahearn, who had broken this story in her column, had previously made know her bias toward the police department. Her take on this serious matter, posted by Robinson, seemed almost flippant.

I was curious about who this anonymous source high in the police department might be. He or she hadn’t been mentioned in any of the news stories. The N&R clearly was relying on an anonymous source, whose motives were unknown, but were not telling its readers about it until this point, when it was hidden away on the editor’s blog. I also was curious to see if anybody would comment on this post.

So I went to the Editor’s Log the next morning. And, lo and behold, this entire post was missing, as if it had been snatched away by the secret police.

No mention ever has been made about why this post was taken down. Curious readers might want to know. I hope that since you are concerned about such matters that you will undertake to have somebody tell us what happened.

Oh, wait a minute….Mark…Mark…Mark Binker. I remember now. You’re the reporter who at a public meeting stated that the N&R dismisses out of hand whatever it hears from at least one of its readers, and that unfortunately is me (and heaven only knows how many others). Dadgumit! I guess we’ll never know the dark secrets behind John Robinson’s mysterious missing post.

Hey, you think it actually could be the secret police? Did anybody report it? Shhh! I’ll bet Lorraine could come up with a humdinger of a conspiracy theory. She’s good at that.

Jerry, the post you are referring to is title "Evolution of a Story." It's not listed in the The Editor's Log archives but it is still online.

Thanks, Roch

Do you suppose it could be missing from the archives because of a power failure?

Heh heh... more suspected Kindling but this time spared from the fire.

Jerry - I don't suppose you actually paid JR the courtesy of asking him why you couldn't find the post, did you? I don't see anything in the post that the paper wouldn't want to claim as its own. And obviously, it's still around on our servers.

I'll let John speak for what happened there, if he knows.

The reporter, whose name skips your mind, is Eric Townsend. He covers our day police beat for us.

Since you brought it up, I will speak to your comment "You’re the reporter who at a public meeting stated that the N&R dismisses out of hand whatever it hears from at least one of its readers, and that unfortunately is me (and heaven only knows how many others)."

I did not say the News & Record. I said me, as in I as one individual would listen to anybody else but you. At the time, I was attempting a bit of good natured humor. Given that you're someone who has spent a good deal of his free time disparaging my organization and, by extension, your former colleagues, one might expect that I would take what you say with a grain of salt. I also wanted the focus of the conversation to stay on the general public's dealings with the paper rather than veer down the path of your own special relationship with us.

Today, I would observe that the paper has provided a forum here and on our other blogs for you to make your opinions known. You have availed yourself of those opportunities vigorously. And given this response, I’m obviously listening to you.

But I would say - completely without humor or wasting any of my limited good nature - launching a snide attack on John Robinson, the guy leading our effort to be more open and accountable, is not the best way for you to argue to be taken more seriously.

Since there seems to be some interest in the question, let’s take an other crack at it: Is there ever a good reason to take down a post from blog? Or is there some reason other than Sue’s two examples to take down the comments? (Speaking of beyond-the-pale comments, Sue argues http://www.livejournal.com/users/southernrants/170903.html " target="_blank">here that the paper may be at the point of needing to moderate the comments on the http://blog.news-record.com/staff/letters/ " target="_blank">letters to the editor blog.

Or is the answer no, let it all hang out?

No big conspiracy, either in the story or the missing post, so don't let your imaginations run away with you.

The post was taken down when the reporter had second thoughts about whether his source would be identifiable by people involved in the investigation. I was out of town at the time and learned that it was taken down later, but I don't disagree with the decision. I certainly could have posted something about its removal but by the time I returned, several days had passed. In retrospect, I should have explained the removal, just so that people wouldn't think the worst.

I am sorry, though, that I missed the newspaper foaming at the mouth. :)

I had a post on my community blog a few weeks back that was sexual based and used some words that some people in Blogsboro did not like. I had the option to remove the post or delete the words. I chose to delete the comments.

I feel that in most situations, you do not need to remove the post, i am not against editing when you cite why and you can move on with your day.

I think removing has to do with your readership and their expectations more than anything else.

Yes, that's true. JR's post was up a short while when police reporter Eric Townsend told me that he was concerned the post compromised his source. JR was out of town so I asked Mike Fuchs to take the post down and i sent JR an email telling him what we had done and why.
Should we have taken it down under the circumstances? It seemed the thing to do given Eric's concern. Should we have put up a note in its place explaining why we removed it? To be honest, at the time I never thought so much would be read into the removal of one item. And it had only been up briefly.
But live and learn; next time I certainly will know better.
At any rate, it was no great mystery. It was a quick decision in response to a reporter's concern for a source.

I've put up a couple of posts that I would liked to take back, one with a particularly unfortunate analogy about hurricanes springs immediately to mind. My critics still dredge it up now and again. I could have killed the post but it didn't feel honest.

I think the thing is, you're speaking to strangers who only know you through your words. If you rewrite history you risk losing credibility with your readers. It seems there was a good reason to take down JR's post but I think it should have been acknowledged in order to avoid just such speculation as Jerry indulges in.

As far as The Chairman, I just made the gentleman's acquaintance today and judging from my limited reading, I don't think he need worry about credibility - it doesn't appear he has any. From what I see, his posts could rather use a rewrite.

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