FROM THE NEWSROOM:Civility counts when posting feedback

For some time now, Daily Pilot readers have been treated to a new feature on our website that we call Reader Comments.

The feature allows readers to post an opinion, commentary or statement on the end of a story, or column or editorial.

Basically, in Web parlance, readers can post a Web log, or “blog” on every online story. It’s just one more way for us to become interactive with readers in this new multimedia world.

And, to put it mildly, it’s been a huge success.

During the elections, the Reader Comments on the end of the stories were a political spinmeister’s dream and nightmare all rolled into one, with the backers of individual candidates duking it out on our Web pages.

Then came the story and photo we ran on the Our Lady Queen of Angels coach and teacher who was arrested in public by police. The coach was arrested on suspicion of check fraud. But some readers didn’t seem to care what he was arrested for. Several were angry that we ran the story and photo, accusing us of a number of things, like Catholic bashing and having an agenda against Catholics in general. (Pssst. Please don’t tell that to my parish priest.)

Here’s one example of a comment critical of us:

“My question is, is this NEWS? I do not think that this is news worthy and do not think that this should be in the news. don’t we have better things to report. I guess not. I know that there are bad people out there and they should be getting the head lines. This make me sick to my stomach that you would even write about this. I am glad you have nothing better to do or to report about. You should be sick to your stomach about what you report. Lets think of the kids.”

And before we had a chance to respond, I noticed a funny thing: Some readers came to our defense and posted Web logs that countered the other critics.

Here’s one example:

“The coach was arrested after the game was finished, and it seems, not in the view of his students, although admittedly I was not there. To steal from a co-op credit union, is horrible. I think it had nothing to do with this being a Catholic school, if it had been Newport El, or any other public school, I figure the story would have been the same — a person who is supposed to be a role model for our children, who is stealing. What happened to the Catholic belief, Thou Shalt Not Steal!?!?!?!”

All this back and forth sure made for good reading. In fact, some of our writers look to see what reader comments have been posted to their stories each day. It’s great instant feedback. We’ve even created a feature that tells readers which stories have the most comments made to them. All of this is a new frontier that we are just exploring. And something else bubbled to the surface during all of this.

The Reader Comments are, by their “webby” nature, anonymous. That alone posed a problem since we have always insisted that letters to the editors and other reader responses in print be signed.

But Web logs, or reader comments, just don’t lend themselves to that type of scrutiny online — at least not yet. So in the meantime, we cobbled together some rules of the road. They are listed on the bottom of every story, in the comment section. The rules read:

“Reader comments must be free of obscenity, profanity or content of a questionable nature. The Daily Pilot reserves the right to edit or delete reader comments that do not meet its publishing standards.”

It gives us broad powers to police the commentary and make sure it is acceptable to this family newspaper and its family newspaper website. Though, as you can see from the above comments, the comments are not edited for grammar and spelling, for the most part.

What I also discovered is that Web comments, especially the anonymous ones, are less civil.

So I got religion on that one (pun intended).

We will not approve Reader Comments that aren’t civil for online publication. By that I mean if name calling is involved or sarcasm goes beyond the pale then the scissors come out.

Some people have protested. One person wrote:

“Hey Daily Pilot are you scared to post the rest of my comment. I think it is because you know I am right. Ever heard of FREEDOM OF SPEECH.”

Scared? Not hardly. And yeah, I’m vaguely familiar with that term. But again, we are a newspaper and we reserve the right as such to edit the comments to ensure that the content is not inappropriate. So we bravely go into this new Web world with the reader in tow. And if you have some thoughts or questions or criticisms to what I just wrote, just post a comment at the end.

I can’t let this column go by without making note of a few birthdays.

First is this Friday, Feb. 2. That’s my daughter Kristen’s sixth birthday. It’s also the sixth birthday of Richard Nolan Dunn, the son of the former Daily Pilot Sports Editor, Rich Dunn, who left us to start his own communications business and is doing well, I hear. Richard Nolan and Kristen share a birthday with longtime Wedge bodysurfer Kevin “Mel” Thoman.

Thoman and some of his Wedge bodysurfing crew friends will be having what he calls his “big 5OHNooooooo” birthday party at Malarkey’s this Friday at 7 p.m. If you’re in the area, stop by and wish him well. And be sure to ask him to recite his Groundhog Day ditty.

Finally, since I’m pointing out milestones, this Sunday marks the sixth anniversary of the Daily Pilot’s return to publishing seven days a week.

I can’t believe how fast time has flown since then, but I hope you are still enjoying your Sunday Edition. I know I am.

Happy birthday to all.

See you next week.

is the director of news and online for the Daily Pilot. He can be reached at (714) 966-4608 or via e-mail at [email protected].