Let the Alligator know what you think of their Stalinist tactics:
UPDATE 2: Apparently, a retraction of sorts has been issued. I woke up this morning to find this post from Bucctoo on the GYHD forum.
Turns out after numerous complaints (and what this blogger likes to think is the paper’s fear of being blogged about) the paper suddenly decided they were wrong to paint the EPR and it’s owner in such a crappy light. They basically passed the buck to “New York” for the lame ass reporting and blamed the episodes of mass comment deletion on their content management system.
Because of the way our content management system works, when we edit an article that has already been published and commented on, the comments on that article are deleted.
Suddenly we look like censors.
Now I don’t know about their “Content management system”; for all I know they’re telling the truth. Alright, fine. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. But if that’s the case, they’d have known about this problem before and would either work to fix their editing software, or they’d have replaced it altogether. Why keep a system around that gives people the idea that you are censoring them, knowing that it will damage your reputation for journalistic integrity? That makes no damn sense.
The “retraction” is here. I have to agree with Bucc, these are stumblefuck excuses.
UPDATE: About an hour after my last comment, a Megan Taylor posted the following comment:
” Hi, Alligator readers.
You’ll notice that on occasion, comments disappear from the Web site.
This is not intentional. I want you to be able to have a discussion about all the stories. I want you to be able to voice your opinions, whatever they may be.
The problem is this:
When we make corrections, we go back to the online articles and write in an Editor’s Note so that anyone who stumbles upon the article in the future has the correct information. The system we use to manage our content erases all comments whenever we edit an article.
It’s unfortunate, but right now there isn’t anything we can do about this. “
I peronally think they’re full of shit, but I need verification. Does anyone know of an editing software that does such a thing? That makes no sense.
Yesterday, on the Get Your Hands Dirty forum, my buddy Bucctoo posted a link to an article from the Independent Florida Alligator entitled, “Painted guns resembling toys pose
threat to officers”.
Now, one of the obvious problems with this article is that it’s blatantly biased. Another is that it’s factually incorrect. And a third is that though you don’t see it now, the article originally appeared with a photo of the rifle in question. A photo which neither the editor of the paper nor the reporter bothered to get permission to post. It has since been removed, but only after the rifle’s owner spoke up about it.
But it gets better.
After several readers (including myself; I’m ALD1975.) chastised the paper for it’s lack of journalistic integrity and obvious anti gun bias, the paper saw fit to delete all of the comments.
Yep, you guessed it. Censorship.
There was no reason to delete any of these posts. Their was no vulgarity, no threats, no shouting in all caps, none of that nonsense. It was all well reasoned argument.
So we chastised the paper again, this time not only for their poor reporting, but their censorship as well. This time, the comments stayed up for about 8-12 hours before being unceremoniously deleted yet again!
Now they stepped on their dicks. This time they caught the attention of a reader who was on their side by deleting his comment as well. Clever, no? He was not amused.
So now I, and about six other readers have reposted and I’m counting the hours until these comments are sent down the proverbial “memory hole”.
We shall see. I’ll be posting updates.
