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‘LAT is committed to allowing an online discussion,’ but…

avatar by Published June 10, 2011 7:09 pm

Los Angeles Times | Yakima Herald-Republic
On Thursday afternoon, comments on an article about Israel firing on pro-Palestinian protesters were “restricted” — meaning they’re only posted with a moderator’s approval. “As with many stories about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the comments had moved far beyond the news report and had devolved into personal attacks and hateful speech,” writes Los Angeles Times readers’ rep Deirdre Edgar. || Meanwhile, the Yakima Herald-Republic suspended comments this week and announced that it will be testing a new system that requires commenters to use their real names.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/bradleyfikes Bradley J. Fikes

    Real names aren’t the answer; it’s for the LA Times to actually take comments seriously. Make reading and relying to comments a responsibility of each reporter. It should hardly be surprising that trolldom grows like weeds where comments aren’t carefully tended. This isn’t a new observation, but Web-stupid journalists (especially the editors) refuse to learn the obvious. If the LA Times isn’t willing to commit the required time and care comments need, it should just drop them entirely.

  • Anonymous

  • http://profiles.google.com/loel1044 Loel Lund

    Real names should be required –it is unfortunate that so many people hide behind a screen name to post trash.