When I cancelled my subscription today, I got a call-back, having told the circulation dept. my reason for cancellation.
The gentleman gave me a long tale of the legal implications of a monitored forum. I reminded him that TalkBack was self-policing. There was a REPORT button on every post. And in the year and a half I was on the site, there were a number of people banned. Most of them were “one thread wonders”, buddies of either the victim or the offender in a crime, who yelled all sorts of obscenities and slurs at one another until someone reported them. Funny that Charlie Crystle, who was on the board at that time, NEVER COMPLAINED about the level of “discourse” in those cases.
The racism and name-calling could have been handled easily with warnings and bannings. It wasn’t.
I am beginning to be swayed by the conspiracy theorists who think LNP didn’t/doesn’t want scrutiny of their “bed-fellows” — LGH, High, Fulton Bank, LNP, and F&M. And I think elected public officials didn’t enjoy the scrutiny and open opposition from citizens online, and that includes SDL and Charlie Crystle.
You’re wrong. I did complain about all bigotry. Someone high up at LNP saw the letter last week, looked at the comments, was appalled, and ordered the site shut down.
It’s an unfortunate overreaction, and it won’t end bigotry in Lancaster County. But it’s a start.
As far as conspiracies, well, you can believe that if it serves you. My impression of the new school board is that we invite scrutiny and transparency, and we invite you to come participate in board meetings and committee meetings.
Later this summer we will put out the call for volunteers to help improve the city and lift up our kids. Will you be one of them? We hope so.
Agreed. Mr. Crystal has high political aspirations for himself (as evidenced by his poorly executed senatorial bid). What better way to move his agenda forward than to get a high profile issue into the paper (all the while pandering to Lancaster’s largest voting block).
Maybe he didn’t intend to get talkback closed down, but this sure looks like a win-win for him in any regard, as he now can play himself up as a friend to the hispanic community and there isn’t a major outlet for people to call him on his actions.
Sure there’s an outlet for people to call him on his actions – it’s called the paper itself.
send a letter to the editor saying you’re angry that Crystle is pandering to Latinos and that you found the racism on talkback to be perfectly acceptable.
But you will have to sign your name to that instead of remaining anonymous.
Once again, if LNP had been primarily interested in protecting itself and its cronies, it would have shut down TalkBack in 2005 – 2007 when a group of us regularly attacked them over the hotel and convention center project, and their (fairly successful) attempt at overthrowing the elected government of Lancaster County.
Sooner or later, someone would have brought the current state of TalkBack to the attention of LNP’s management. It just happened to be Charlie. But no matter who it would have been, the results would have been the same, given the attitude of LNP’s upper management.
Oh please. The eds at LNP absolutely select LTE’s based on the newspaper’s (and its friend’s) agenda.