When you’re trying to foster a conversation about race, how do you choose whom to include and whom to exclude?
It’s a question that reporters and editors at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have asked a lot since launching the paper’s “A Conversation about Race” blog in January, and one that generated quite a bit of attention last week.
In a “Conversation about Race” blog post on Friday, Post-Dispatch reporter Doug Moore wrote about the controversy surrounding a photo of a interracial couple that appeared on the Post-Dispatch‘s weekly Go! magazine. The photo generated negative comments from readers, many of whom said they were disturbed that the paper would run such an image.
“The reader comments at the end of the online version clearly showed us,” Moore wrote, “that at least some folks out there are not comfortable with interracial relationships.” One commenter, for instance, wrote: “Haven’t read the story but don’t like to see blacks and whites kissing.” Another said it was “done for shock value. Sickening that a once proud newspaper would resort to this. Joe Pulitzer is turning over in his grave in shame.”
The blog became a forum to discuss the magazine cover and in turn spurred even more negative comments, prompting some local bloggers to criticize stltoday.com for allowing such feedback. One local blogger even started a “racist comment of the day” thread on his blog after reading the comments. Gawker further highlighted what people had said.
Kurt Greenbaum, the Post-Dispatch‘s social media editor, responded to the outpouring of responses in a blog post that laid out stltoday.com’s commenting guidelines. He said he deleted a number of comments that violated the guidelines, but kept several negative comments, hoping they’d foster a conversation.
“Those who disagree with racist attitudes should stand up to them. And while responding may not change the mind of the original author, it might influence others.”
The post about the photograph illustrates how the paper is using “A Conversation About Race” to spur conversation, generate story ideas and solve problems regarding the “dialogue versus diatribe” debate. It’s a debate that the blog’s contributors and editors are still learning how to best moderate.
I talked with Greenbaum earlier this year about the blog and interviewed him again this week to find out how the conversations about the Go! cover have developed and what the paper has learned from them. Here is an edited version of our exchange.
Mallary Tenore: Talk a little bit about your motivation behind starting “A Conversation about Race.”
Kurt Greenbaum: We started to allow comments on our stories last August. Since that time, I’ve watched some story comments (not most; some) devolve into discussions of race or approach overt racism. Well before that, I’ve watched comments on our forums devolve in a similar way.
So, for quite a while, the idea of having a place to actually talk specifically about race was simmering in my brain. The story comments really brought it to the front burner. I gathered a group in our newsroom to discuss the idea. I also spoke to Dawn Turner Trice at the Chicago Tribune, who writes a similar blog, “Exploring Race,” to pick her brain about it.
I also spoke to someone in our community who is involved in a “Dismantling Racism” program offered by the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri. All of those discussions informed how we put this together.
Some of the comments on the blog suggest that people are tired of talking about race. One commenter, for instance, wrote: “YAWN. I’m done w/ this subject for the rest of my life.” Have you found that a lot of readers share this sentiment?
Greenbaum: Yes; absolutely. One of the big recurring themes in the comments is whether this means we’re done. Race isn’t an issue. Move on. Yet we see race-related issues that come up — like the Go! cover story — and they generate discussion, so we know it’s not a dead topic.
How often do you respond to the comments, and how do you moderate them, if at all?
Greenbaum: Personally, I respond only occasionally — not as often as I probably should. Our bloggers are aware that they can and they are encouraged to do so. But I don’t think we do often enough at this point.
When a reader posts his or her first comment, it is flagged and does not go live until a blogger has reviewed it. Once someone has had an approved comment, their remarks go live immediately. All the bloggers get an e-mail when a comment is posted on their items and deal with them as needed.
We have agreed among us that if we really want to invite candid conversation, we’ll allow readers to post comments that might make us uncomfortable because they are intolerant or prejudiced. We will not allow comments that use hateful expressions such as the “n word.”
The blog, and the paper, was criticized last week for allowing some hateful comments about the Go! story to remain on the site. How representative is this of the feedback you’ve gotten overall about the blog?
Greenbaum: Beyond the feedback in the comments, I have heard from representatives of a couple of community organizations who were generally complimentary of the effort and expressed a willingness to work with us on it. None of that has borne fruit just yet.
Some of the comments are very positive and encouraging about it. I would describe traffic to the blog as “good, but not blockbuster.” It’s around the middle of the pack for our stable of blogs. We have more than 50 staff-produced blogs on our site that generate 600,000 to 700,000 page views a week. Sports and politics leads the pack. This blog is in the top 15 or 20 on a weekly basis.
Do you think blogs about race work?
Greenbaum: Good question. I think it’s too soon to tell. I guess it depends on what we mean by “work.” Our expressed goal for this blog was simply to provide a forum for discussion of topical issues and invite readers’ views on the issue. It was also our intention that the blog would help us expose issues and questions that we could follow up on with stories.
The paper, for instance, is now working on a story about the state of interracial relationships in St. Louis based on the response it got when it opened up the conversation to readers in the “Conversation about Race” blog post.
Aside from starting the blog, have you done anything to reach out to those who are opposed to/tired of talking about race? Should journalists even bother to do so?
Greenbaum: Certainly. I’m not sure what that “something more” is just now. One step at a time. We have a reporter dedicated to covering diversity — and he is a contributor to this blog. So he is among those who will benefit from hearing the discussion; it can help him shape how he covers the issue. I’m not aware of anything else we have done specifically to reach out to people who are opposed to or tired of talking about race.
You know, my original thinking about this was almost like Edward R. Murrow “outing” Sen. Joseph McCarthy with his own words. Would it be possible to expose the folly of racism, intolerance and bigotry by letting people go? Our conversations about it evolved the concept into something a little more sustainable, but that’s always in the back of my mind.
I find it interesting that people who profess to be tired of it nonetheless come back for more. Perhaps if they’ll continue to participate, they will hear something that influences them. Minds have been changed in the past.
Clarification: An earlier version of this article used the word “biracial” to describe the couple on the Go! cover. It was changed to “interracial” which, by definition, is a more accurate word to describe a mixed-race couple.
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