Message Boards
The Denver Colorado daily newspaper The Rocky Mountain News recently joined the growing list of daily newspapers to cease publication. In an electronic age, print newspapers are struggling to survive, and now even major cities like Denver Colorado only have one daily print newspaper.
The end of another major daily newspaper is not good news, especially in a country that boasts as one of its founding beliefs, the freedom of the press. Unfortunately, it also means that newspapers have the freedom to fail as well, and during tough economic times when citizens need hard-hitting reporters following where our tax dollars are being spent, newspapers are going the way of the stone tablet and chisel.
The Internet has filled the void to a certain extent, but Internet and television reporting tends to be superficial, it is the fast food of reporting for an electronic age needing instant gratification. There are some good Internet sites, but for every decent site there are hundreds more whose sole purpose is to spread rumor and false information. There is such a rush to get stories out that fact checking is almost a lost art.
Another by-product of the lack of newspapers is the message board, an electronic version of the water cooler. Local message boards provide a forum for every Thom, Dick and Harry to spout off about everything and anything and they do so anonymously in many cases.
Anonymity or not, message boards afford a bully pulpit for modern day hate mongers and political hacks. The laws are such that it is almost impossible to get any legal redress once a poster has trashed your business or reputation. Your only hope is that the administrator will honor your request to have malicious information removed, but unfortunately, message board administrators are not legally liable for misinformation posted on their respective message boards.
Many message boards work on an honor system, the hope is that the group will police themselves and administrators will only have to step in when things get bad. This has become a daunting task, a fact attested to by the demise of the Journal-Register forum and recently a message board in Washington Indiana associated with a sister newspaper, which a poster from Orleans County flooded with defamatory comments and threats. Washington Indiana residents now find themselves without a message board.
In theory, message boards provide a good environment for intelligent discourse. My experience with them has found lots of discourse but not a lot of intelligence, or at least not from the posters who like to dominate every discussion.
Newspaper editorial pages once monopolized sound political debate. They still provide a relatively safe place to post opinion, as long as you are willing to have your name published. Letters to the editor and columns such as this are designed to inform and engage the reader and express opinion in a civil manner. There are not any indications that there is a shortage of opinions, but sadly, there seems to be a shortage of appropriate and safe places to express them.
The end of another major daily newspaper is not good news, especially in a country that boasts as one of its founding beliefs, the freedom of the press. Unfortunately, it also means that newspapers have the freedom to fail as well, and during tough economic times when citizens need hard-hitting reporters following where our tax dollars are being spent, newspapers are going the way of the stone tablet and chisel.
The Internet has filled the void to a certain extent, but Internet and television reporting tends to be superficial, it is the fast food of reporting for an electronic age needing instant gratification. There are some good Internet sites, but for every decent site there are hundreds more whose sole purpose is to spread rumor and false information. There is such a rush to get stories out that fact checking is almost a lost art.
Another by-product of the lack of newspapers is the message board, an electronic version of the water cooler. Local message boards provide a forum for every Thom, Dick and Harry to spout off about everything and anything and they do so anonymously in many cases.
Anonymity or not, message boards afford a bully pulpit for modern day hate mongers and political hacks. The laws are such that it is almost impossible to get any legal redress once a poster has trashed your business or reputation. Your only hope is that the administrator will honor your request to have malicious information removed, but unfortunately, message board administrators are not legally liable for misinformation posted on their respective message boards.
Many message boards work on an honor system, the hope is that the group will police themselves and administrators will only have to step in when things get bad. This has become a daunting task, a fact attested to by the demise of the Journal-Register forum and recently a message board in Washington Indiana associated with a sister newspaper, which a poster from Orleans County flooded with defamatory comments and threats. Washington Indiana residents now find themselves without a message board.
In theory, message boards provide a good environment for intelligent discourse. My experience with them has found lots of discourse but not a lot of intelligence, or at least not from the posters who like to dominate every discussion.
Newspaper editorial pages once monopolized sound political debate. They still provide a relatively safe place to post opinion, as long as you are willing to have your name published. Letters to the editor and columns such as this are designed to inform and engage the reader and express opinion in a civil manner. There are not any indications that there is a shortage of opinions, but sadly, there seems to be a shortage of appropriate and safe places to express them.
Comments