Responding to a reader about our comments on NewsOK
I wrote a post last week that pointed out some changes to the way we display comments on NewsOK.
I was pointing out that the tone of the public conversation on NewsOK has grown more and more hateful and destructive. My post garnered this response from a reader:
Yes I’ve been noticing how ya wont let me write down certain things for a comment and what i have wrote down hasnt been out of taste or ordinary, but that seems like y’all are going against what y’all live by? Your so called motto “freedom of speech” But your paper? so do what u want, but you let the comments that people want to here like obama haters, mexican haters, just haters period !! I from what I read its about 99% pure white people. Is that the intention is to get the white people all riled up? heck I got enough racism coming my way everyday just to let you know and I aint even mexican. Why dont u rename the paper The Oklahoma White News !!! For the paper motto you can say [White news is always the right news] being native american well thats what they want to call us now well I guess thats a big step from blanket a.. or wagon burner and my best one just plain ol’ chief anyhow I’am just one voice of many that probably feels the same way about what you let get commented so just letting u know how the small guy feels.
I responded to some of the reader’s point, and I thought it would be useful to post our conversation as a brand new post.
My response:
We do have a word filter and don’t allow comments containing certain characters.
As for the comments we take action on … our online editors on duty evaluate every comment that is flagged as inappropriate by our users. We decide at that time whether or not to remove the comment. Our intention is to maintain productive dialogue along with our articles.
And finally, we do believe in freedom of speech. However, NewsOK.com is not required under the first amendment to offer a platform for all language and all points of view. We definitely want a wide variety of voices. But we also want a civil, productive and on-topic discussion, so sometimes we are forced to remove comments as they are brought to our attention.
Oklahoma City Barons reach the NewsOK navigation
We made a quick change to our NewsOK sub-navigation for Sports last week.
It happened on the same day that the Oklahoma City Barons made the official announcement about their name, ending months of speculation about the name of the new AHL hockey team in Oklahoma City.
Look for our Barons coverage to expand in the coming months. We’ll be adding a blog from reporter Ryan Aber as our coverage picks up.
The page will expand as our coverage expands.
But for now, we have a page and we have a spot in our permanent navigation. That’s how we welcome the Barons.
A small change to our comments on NewsOK
Comments on NewsOK are something I often hear about.
- I hear about how people love to read our comments.
- I hear about how people wish the comments on NewsOK were more – how can I say this? – intelligent? constructive? on topic?
- I hear about how we are sometimes inconsistent with allowing comments on some stories and not others.
- I hear about how our comments can be embarrassing when users share the article with friends in other areas of the country.
I’ve thought a lot about comments in the past year, but we haven’t changed our philosophy. We haven’t made any major changes to our comments.
But the internal discussion about comments has become more intense. And so today, we have a small change to the way we display comments on NewsOK.
Today, comments are not visible to users just by scrolling to the bottom of the article on NewsOK. A user must now choose to click a button at the bottom of the story to view the comments. Below is what it looks like on a story right now:
We think this helps users who are sometimes dismayed by the dialogue that happens at the bottom of our articles. But it also allows us to keep a live conversation open to users who either want to participate or want to read.
We are continuing to think about comments on NewsOK, and we might have more changes in the future. In the meantime, we are committed to offering an open dialogue among readers of NewsOK.
We will continue to follow our guidelines as we decide which articles to enable the commenting functionality. And we will continue to evaluate each article and each comment as we become aware of the tone of the conversation.
Sports reporters doing what they do
Oronde Taliaferro - Dec. 8, 2007. Photo By Steve Sisney, The Oklahoman
The big sports story on NewsOK today was actually posted yesterday afternoon.
The breaking news story was overshadowed yesterday by the weather explosion we were about to see in the skies above central Oklahoma. Nevertheless, the story about former OU assistant basketball coach Oronde Taliaferro quickly became one of our most-viewed stories on the site.
I point this story out today for one simple purpose: Sometimes, we must pause and applaud good journalists doing good work.
Jake Trotter, our OU beat reporter, and Guerin Emig, the Tulsa World’s OU beat reporter, have been working to get the open records from OU for months.
The Oklahoman and Tulsa World discovered the correspondence during a review of Taliaferro’s phone records, as requested by both newspapers under the Oklahoma Open Records Act.
After attempting first to shield Taliaferro’s phone records, OU complied with the records requests this week, then issued a statement Wednesday confirming calls were made from Taliaferro’s phone to Hausinger and that the exchanges are part of an ongoing, joint investigation by OU and the NCAA.
OU officials didn’t want to comply, but they eventually did. And because of all that, you know a little more about what was happening inside Sooner basketball last year as we watched the team lose interest and focus throughout the season.
It’s no small thing. Our readers had a right to see those phone records. It’s the law.
But the readers wouldn’t have seen those facts without real journalists with a passion to get the real story.
A breaking news story about a breaking news story
Yesterday, a woman in Alabama knew about something in Bethel Acres.
And because she communicates with us, our audience became aware.
On Twitter, we saw this post from a user named Cynthia Nichols:
@newsok I just heard there has been an electrical fire at Bethel Elementary. Don’t know any details though.
The tip was sent along to our breaking news team. A reporter checked it out and found it newsworthy enough to post immediately on NewsOK.com:
Transformer catches fire outside Bethel Acres elementary school
It’s not a huge breaking news story. But it’s a story that definitely needed reporting.
We did that on NewsOK — with a little help from a reader in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
It’s a small world.
Hot Ink launches 2010 edition
Every year, members of the news and information center for OPUBCO Communications Group work with a group of high school students to share wisdom and experience with young people who have an interest in journalism.
It’s called Newsroom 101, and the public-facing result is Hot Ink, and annual publication and web page created by and for high school students in central Oklahoma.
The latest installment of Hot Ink has been unveiled. You can see how the students of 2010 cover their community about what they think about the future of newspapers and the future of journalism.
Check it out at Hot Ink.
Eleven years later: Remembering May 3, 1999
Eleven years ago today, I survived the most dangerous tornado anyone had ever seen.
I was in a utility closet in the middle of Moore, America. I actually thought there was a good chance I wouldn’t survive. It was scary. It was loud. And yes – it sounded like a freight train.
I was unharmed. The house I lived in (but didn’t own) was slightly damaged. But the neighborhood about three blocks to the north of us was destroyed. May 3, 1999 is one of the dozen or so days in my life I will never forget. I actually remember far more details than the sound of the tornado, but — I say again — it definitely sounded like a train.
Today, we asked a question to our friends on Facebook: Where were you on May 3, 1999? If you were anywhere near Oklahoma, you probably remember where you were.
We’ve already received dozens of responses to our Facebook question. Some of them are fascinating.
Barbara Wallace-Mcbroom: In Davis, watching it all unfold on tv. Praying for those in danger and still can’t believe how horrid it was. I take nothing in life for granted and now live in El Reno with a Basement!!
Steve Hickey: On I-35, pulled off into a bar ditch 5 miles south of Moore riding out the storm in a conversion van with my three youngest children. Watched the tornado pass by, then one of the first on the scene at Shields Blvd.
Sara Chance Smith: 89th & S.May watching it hail without rain and the sun shinning as the tornado was coming down the highway. The weather man on tv said ” take cover, don’t FART around” My son said, “Did he just say FART”. So we took cover!!!
Lisa Marie Strickland: Driving down the road in Choctaw and saw the tornado on the ground behind the Westfall Elementary school and coming straight at us and had my niece in the backseat just laughing away but she was only 2 and had no clue what was going on.
Last year — on the 10th anniversary — we built a special website to remember the horrible events of May 3, 1999. The site is packed full of information and serves as the best location for seeing how the devastation affected our state in the days, weeks and months following the storm. You can see a series of videos that do a great job of putting faces to the tragedies.
Here’s one of the videos. It shows our own reporter Nolan Clay sharing his story.
I’m very proud of the site we put together last year. It’s well-designed and easy to navigate.
But what I like best about the site is the story it tells. You can’t visit the page without learning a lot more about May 3, 1999 — the events, the survivors and the people who lost their lives.
