The editor's blog

Do you YouTube?

About 20 years ago some newspaper editors began using questions from readers as part of political reporting and termed it public journalism. At the time, it was considered controversial by the more conservative members of the media, seen as a sort of abdication of responsibility by letting nonjournalists into the discussion alongside professionals. It was a return to the way newspapers had done things since their inception as the daily printed public forum.

Talk radio, the earliest broadcast version of citizen journalism, began in the 1920s, took off in the 1950s with Joe Pyne and others, migrated onto the FM format in the 1970s and became mainstream in the 1990s with the popularity rise of Rush Limbaugh and others. Beginning in the 1950s similar formats on television emerged although town hall type coverage on tv is a relatively recent trend.

Monday night's Democratic presidential debate on CNN featured video questions from citizens selected from YouTube entries. I thought it was terrific, primarily because it seemed to shorten the usual amount of political posturing and included questions that journalists wouldn't necessarily have in their notebooks to ask. Also, the range of topics was diverse. On the down side, some of the more substantive issues a new president might face were less than center stage.

I'd like to know what you think.

Should comments include real names?

Some of you may have noticed that we stopped asking for comments on local news stories we post several months ago. We took that step because the racist, sexist or just down right crude comments that accompanied many stories added nothing to the public debate and were taking time we don't have to closely monitor.

Our sister newspaper, The Sacramento Bee,  just announced a plan to require people who post comments online to identify themselves by name rather than remaining anonymous through the use of a screen name or by including no name at all..

Here's what The Bee's public editor, Armando Acuna, told their readers:

"By eliminating anonymity, the thinking goes, the amount of online bile will diminish, perhaps at the cost of fewer overall comments. At the same time, The Bee will stop its practice of online editors screening every comment, which has led to hours-long delays, and allow reader self-posting.

"So I asked readers what they thought of the changes and a few dozen responded. Like online postings themselves, the responses covered the gamut of opinion and were delivered with the ethos of their sacbee.com cousins -- with doses of zest and sincerity sprinkled with disrespect and condescension. The majority said they supported requiring identification. Some said they were tired of the rudeness and crudeness -- a few so much so they stopped commenting altogether -- and that the paper was naive in thinking that lifting anonymity would lift the level of debate.

"Several others though said The Bee was over-reacting and infringing on freedom of speech. A few said anonymity allowed those inside government institutions, such as law enforcement, the freedom to question and challenge supervisors higher up the food chain without fear of repercussions.

"But more were similar to this:

" 'Hooray!' read the e-mail from Dave and Patty Palmer of Georgetown. 'We did post several times regarding a sports article and used our real name (didn't find out how the others got their fake one), but so many of the posts were negative and derogatory name calling, etc., that we stopped. As a matter of fact, (we) stopped reading 'comments' altogether. So, we are happy The Bee has taken steps to bring good posting, debate and interesting comments for us readers. Thank you.' "

Here at The Sun News/myrtlebeachonline.com, we are discussing how and when to restore the comments to our coverage. We'd love to hear what you think. Post here, please.

Lying politicians

An anonymous voicemail message I received today:

"When Bill Clinton lied to the grand jury, you couldn't even find it in your newspaper. But now it's front page with Scooter Libby. How come? You people. I can't believe what you do. Good BYE." (The caller said his final word with extra emphasis.)

Some readers assume the journalists or at least the editors at The Sun News are ultra liberals and select, order and emphasize stories as one way to drive a political agenda. I know because I hear from these readers when they take exception to story play or heandline tone. Other readers are equally as sure that we're driving a Republican, conservative agenda in just the same ways.

We published the Libby story as the lead on today's Page one because it was, in our view, the most important news of the day. Until the wire services alerted us to the Libby news late in the afternoon, we were planning a Page one built around the British terrorist story and a local education update. Playing the Libby story as we did seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Still seems like the right decision to me. For the record, we played Clinton's grand jury testimony as well as many of the ensuing legal twists and turns on Page one as well.

Sick of Paris Hilton?

Thanks for realizing that Paris Hilton's troubles are not Page one news. That, in essence, summarizes a comment from Myrtle beach artist Harry Love last week. Harry and several other city leaders met with some of us from The Sun News to discuss ideas and views on news coverage and other topics. We have published reports of Paris' woes generally on Page 2A, our daily spot for news from the entertainment world. In our view, nothing she's done to date has warranted front page news.