NY Times to Readers: Drop Dead

The New York Times has opened a few of its stories-tentatively, selectively-to comments from the public. Between the public and these stories the Gray Lady has installed four part-time staffers whose job it is to uphold the quality of public discourse.

Quoted in Editor & Publisher, Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president for digital operations of The New York Times Company, said: "A pure free-for-all doesn't, in my opinion, equal good. It can equal bad."

In the same E&P story, Kate Phillips, editor of the Times' Caucus blog: "I almost wish we could go back to the days when we never heard their [readers'] voices."

NYT public editor Clark Hoyt told Editor & Publisher that the paper finds itself "struggling with a vexing problem...How does the august Times, which has long stood for dignified authority, come to terms with the fractious, democratic culture of the Internet, where readers expect to participate but sometimes do so in coarse, bullying and misinformed ways?"

To which I say, to adopt the sort of uncivil language Sulzberger & Co. would never permit on their site: Bite me, you LOSERS!!!!!

Ahem.

To recede back into reasoned discourse: the Times' employees' diction and thinking betray an institutional viewpoint that suits it very poorly, in the first instance, for the Internet: Get this: The new medium has obligated the Times to comes to term with a democratic culture! Far worse, it's a...fractious one! Oh, how vexatious! After all, the Times is "august," and it stands for "dignified authority"!

Frankly, the Times also betrays an institutional self-infatuation that suits the paper very poorly for...well, just about anyone with self-respect.

Nisenholtz, Phillips, and Hoyt ooze supercilious condescension. Readers - unlike the staff members of the New York Times, except maybe Judith Miller, Jayson Blair, and... [you get the idea] - can be misinformed!

Readers can be coarse!

And the culture can be-absolutely unlike the Times, which has never used its power to beat up on a weaker opponent that can't protect itself-full of bullies!

I have previously praised the Times for its sophisticated use of web technology: Its Debate Analyzer tool is a breakthrough product. Its My Times feature demonstrates advanced understanding of the need to provide user control of content in the digital age.

But its policy regarding reader comments reveals a very important way its current management is poorly prepared for the rising era of communication.

At a time when the newspaper is shedding veteran reporters, and in need of developing highly skilled multimedia journalists, devoting 2 slots to sweeping back the sea with a broom is a bad decision. It's sort of sweet, or silly, or just plain batty. It's the stockholders' money, and if they'd rather spend it shielding reader comments from view rather than funding journalism, that's their business.

But the paper's motivation for vetting the comments, as summarized by Hoyt - to uphold the appearance of dignity or augustitude or whatever - betrays a withering contempt for readers.

It shows a lack of confidence in the very people the Times' advertising group is always bragging about: the national intelligencia, the "thought leaders," the discriminating cosmopolitans and patrons of the high arts.

It is a rather transparent form of censorship - the Fourth Estate squelching the voices of the undignified masses in the name of political and economic self-interest-and vanity.

It is a window into an institutional culture that is made ill, deep down, by the unpleasantness of contemporary public life.

It is, in the end, not an expression of dignity. It's an expression of cowardice.

Comments

[BearCountry]

I am just an average person reader, but I stopped reading the NYT many years ago. Its arrogant self-importance became too grating for me. The quotes you cite show me that I was right. That they keep MoDo, Bobo, and the reporters who helped play up Whitewater, and send us into war in Iraq for no good reason keep up their poor tradition.

[TommyMcCarthy]

to the moderator: I hve a comment "stuck" thnx & happy thxgvg........tm

[Aunt Shecky]

Do you think perhaps the NYT is worried about a kind of Gresham's Law? If the public discourse is not subject to a filter of some sort, then surely the Bad will drive out the Good. Ultimately the thoughtful readers will go elsewhere.
Certainly no one is against free speech, but judging from many postings (apart from the bloggers on the Huffington Post, of course) not everyone who sits at the keyboard is a genius. That's putting it mildly! Even those of us who are supposedly educated oft make horribly embarrassing mistakes, yours truly included. A good editor is just what the Internet needs.
If the postings on some of the sites I've seen are any indication, few in this country really know their own native language and they spell like an American Idol reject sings! Our educational system must be worse than we thought.

[justannesopinion]

If the NYT doesn't want the grammatical lapses, insult trading among posters, and gratuitous cruelty directed toward powerless targets that crop up a lot on some forums, that's the NYT's choice to make.

[Pdubya]

I'm enjoying the crumbling of MSM propoganda.

thank goodness the internet is a relatively free speach enterprise.

let us keep it that way.

[tedperl]

I disagree. Most comment functions are better served by some moderation. Who bothers to read most of the drivel. At least with the Times you can actually follow a discussion and sometimes learn something. Was there not an economics saying that "bad money drives out good".
The argument should be about what you want to filter out, not the value of the filter

[popmanifesto]

The irony is delicious. This website, on which maybe 1 in 6 or 7 of my comments actually gets posted (and none of which has any offensive or disagreeable content), decrying the NYT's "withering contempt for readers." Check your walls before you throw that stone. I believe they're made of glass.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I enjoy the forums, HuffPo is a lot of fun,
but I also respect it if a news company
doesn't want to invest the time in a public
thread forum etc. After all, there is one
issue, what if someone reads something in such
a forum, and decides to call Dewey, Cheatham,
and Howe to take legal action against that
publishing company? Then what? Then they
get sued for 8*10^186th dollars, then they
go out of business or something. There IS that...

[Steamboater]

The times shouldn' tbe so stodgy and should be more open to readers' comments like the Washington Post is. The WP allows readers to take down more than a few pegs some of their right-wing White House propagandists and that's not only fun but a good thing. The NYTimes needs to know it's now the 21st century and not the 19th.

[cornflower]

I wish the NYT would concern itself with publishing articles that I cared to read about the real issues of the day, something they don't seem to do much of in recent times.

So why would they give us the real voices of their readers? They don't give us real news!

[Horst]

The problem with the Times is not its political slant but rather the fact that it is dry and boring. It also panders to New York yuppie culture, one of the least attractive elements of American life.

[TommyMcCarthy]

I absolutely disagree with the premise here. The Times' vetting of comments, which Mr. Stoltz claims is a grevious disservice to the reader is actually quite the opposite.

Right here at Huffpo there are moderators toiling away... processing and ulimately on some level VETTING the comments submitted. Just a glance at the "comments" section on any blog or news article will tell you that huffpo has a tolerant policy and gives commenters fairly wide latitude.We like that... that's part of what brings us all here. A couple of visits can tell the reader what to expect in terms of standards at The Huffington Post.

Similarly, one can expect different standards in terms of content and comment policy from publications called say.... "Christian Thought" or "Peaceactivist" or even "Noseboogers".

What we might expect to see at a publication with "New York Times" on the masthead is pretty well known, and I have no problem with the Time's editors excersizing editorial control over thier newspaper online or not.

That certain Times employees might be arrogant or resistant to change is not exactly a news flash either.

The unfortunate aberrations of the Jayson Blair and Judith Miller debacles are not relevant to the issue at hand, and Mr. Stolz' case was not advanced by including them.

Just my two cents worth.....­........tm

[Athoughtortwo]

I have to say that I have really come to enjoy reader responses. It can actually be quite fascinating to not only read the thoughtful responses, of which there are many, but also the idiotic or ranting ones too, as they offer alternative windows to look at subjects, and sometimes they can give me an insight into how a lot of average people actually see an issue. It actually is kinda boring at times reading a liberal site when there are no conservative comments. It's more fun when there is an argument. And if you don't like what's said, just don't read it. I would love to see the whole range of thoughts on NY Times articles. Some damn smart readers,and a lot of crazy ones too I am sure. A lot of fun and fascinating reading if they open it up for sure.

[LindaJay]

The Times ran that ridiculous farce of a column by Maureen Dowd on "Obambi" and Hillary the Dominatrix - and they're worrying about US messing with the Times dignity? I think they're doing a damn good job wrecking their own dignity!

[Aries198]

Are they vetting content and topics or just the quality of the writing -- something they have always done with their Letters section?

New technology or not, I appreciate some civility on-line. Even on Huff Post, too many people sink into insults and flames rather than informed discussion.

If NY Times seeks to stimulate informed discussion by containing the outlandish verbage and personal attacks, I think that is their right as well. As long as they don't censor due to content (meaning topic or position) I wouldn't mind some sense of respectability on-line just as I do with the print version.