The Los Angeles Times will not publish letters from climate-change deniers, but it does allow online comments that express that point of view, as long as they’re not too mean.
The Times can remove “inappropriate” comments, Hillary Manning, director of communications for the Times, told Poynter in an e-mail yesterday. Otherwise, its policy is similar to those at many other sites: Comments must be “germane to the article,” and they can’t be “abusive, off-topic or foul.” They can’t be “racist, sexist or homophobic.” They can’t advertise or spam, and they can’t “celebrate the death, injury or illness of any person, public figure or otherwise.”
At the bottom of each comments section, Manning notes, is a sentence saying, “The Times makes no guarantee of comments’ factual accuracy.”
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