There’s obviously a fine line between free speech and hate speech, in my mind the D&C crosses that line when they allow comments about “ghetto trash” to stand.

I still get the feeling that most of the older newsies ignore blogs as a matter of principle, though.

The D&C just changed forum providers. They had outsourced their forumns to Topix, a company that monitors forums for overt violations of terms of service, but doesn’t do much to build community. Now they’re running the forums themselves using a tool called Pluck.

The key dynamic is whether reporters will comment on the new forums, and I’ve seen one do so.

I’m a 53-year old Status Mohawk of the Six Nations of the Grand River (Canada), a dual-citizen (CDN/U.S.) living in the Rochester area (315er) and committed Green Party member in both Canada and the States.

There aren’t many of my demographic around here and RT has listened where others have merely snickered. Nia:wen!

Blogs are free.

…speaking of which on WHEC-TV 10 this morning, they announced that they have SHUT DOWN their forums as a result of the hatred that was displayed by participants, and that they could no longer allow it to continue.

Kudos to Channel 10 for having the courage to shut down and non-facilitate the racism, discrimination, hatred and down right criminal conduct that was being displayed in their forums.

Too bad (as usual) the D&C is always late for the bus.

Bloggers aren’t afraid to say what the facts are, are not afraid of offending the politicians

Right on, GA! Seems to me that there was a time in our country when journalists weren’t afraid of saying what the facts and they they didn’t care who they offended. Remember the Watergate stories by Woodward and Bernstein? Remember the Pentagon Papers? Remember when the good old D&C used to regularly endorse most Democrats and the Rethuglicans eventually boycotted the whole process? Seems like we have moved far away from that. Now, we see the NY Times and others providing cover for lying about a war, we see the NY Times for holding onto stories out of fear that they will affect an election, and the D&C editorial board goes out of their way to achieve “faux balance”.

It would be great if the mainstream media could learn from blogs the same way that we learn from them.

I see that at with younger reporters but not so much with the older more established ones.

Blogs are also faster in terms of data transmission because they don’t have an editor who must pre-approve the story. Blogs are just free that way.

What Exile said about putting in the caveat if a story is not rock solid is an example of that type of freedom that readers crave. I don’t think blog readers mind that type of caveat as long as it’s spelled out in the post.