Free speech is the principle under which newspapers operate. As such, the journalists of the Times Free Press have wrestled with how – or whether – to regulate reader comments to our online stories.
We’ve allowed readers to comment anonymously on any story since February 2008. But starting today, the newspaper is changing its policy. Readers are free to comment anonymously on any works of opinion such as columns, editorials and cartoons. In other words, you can give your opinion when the writer is giving his or her opinion.
Don’t worry, those of you who love-or love to hate-editorial cartoonist Clay Bennett are still free to comment on his works since they express an opinion.
But we are closing off comments on fact-based articles such as news, features or business stories and accounts of sporting events. Our reporters and editors spend an enormous amount of time verifying facts and making sure a story is as accurate as possible. If we don’t get it right, we lose our credibility. We don’t run a single letter to the editor without verifying and publishing the writer’s name. And we have very stringent rules for using unnamed sources in news stories. Yet even with all of this fact-checking, we’ve been allowing anonymous commenters to post whatever they want – regardless of whether it’s factual – to our online stories.
Too often, commenters post statements that simply are not accurate; sometimes they attack the person who is the subject of a story.