“[Charlie] Crystle, a School District of Lancaster board member, criticized the newspaper company, which publishes the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era and the Sunday News, at the school board’s meeting last Thursday, claiming it allows people to anonymously post demeaning and racist comments about Hispanics, blacks and other minorities on its website, lancasteronline.com.
“Bob Magel, Lancaster Newspapers marketing director, said TalkBack is, by design, controlled largely by community members, not the newspaper.
“’The editors don’t control it, and to some extent Lancaster Newspapers does not directly control it,’ he said. ‘It’s a platform for people in the county to speak.’”
Click here to read the full article.
WATCHDOG: At NewsLanc, an editor reviews all comments prior to posting, occasionally excising unsubstantiated personal attacks and hyphenating inappropriate language. It is a matter of money and Lancaster Newspapers sense of responsibility to the community.
I’m coming to the conclusion that the forum needs to moderate itself, but that LNP should not publish the comments on the news site and merely link to the forum rather than display the most recent comments at the article level.