Online 'marketplace of ideas’ can get surly

Incivility in cyberspace is fast becoming the bane of online newspapers. Pilotonline.com is no exception to this national trend, and it’s trying to minimize the online venom and vitriol.

In the “Wild West” atmosphere that some users have created at pilotonline, our commitment to the protection of free, uncensored speech competes with an equally sacred obligation to promote an intelligent and spirited exchange of ideas. The choices are difficult.

Journalists like Fred Schecker, senior producer for HamptonRoads.com , were initially captivated by the power of “virtual” publications to connect newspapers to their communities and involve readers in finding solutions to community problems. But as Schecker discovered, some users “aren’t looking for solutions; they are trolling for a fight.”

Compounding the problem at pilotonline was a move in December that enabled users to place their comments immediately following news stories . In that formulation, some readers couldn’t distinguish between the news content and reader responses. Pilotonline’s “Guidelines for Participation” require that users refrain from making abusive statements, attacking individuals or groups based on race or ethnicity, or posting comments in ALL CAPS — the online equivalent of shouting. In spite of those rules, as Schecker notes, “It’s a food fight out there.”

Because responses to news stories, editorial comments, blogs and letters to the editor number several hundred a day, they require too much manpower to continually oversee them.

At the outset, The Pilot established a monitoring system to ensure standards were maintained. Every user’s first 30 comments were screened before they appeared on the Web site. Thereafter, those whose comments met the guidelines were allowed to post directly on the site. That requirement, however, produced a backlog of entries, and the delay in making public the reader postings angered participants.

That threshold was sharply reduced. Under the updated rules, if a new user’s initial comments are considered acceptable, subsequent postings are not monitored. Schecker declined to cite the precise number of posts that are now monitored. A sampling of responses to pilotonline stories reveals the guidelines are widely ignored and provide a glimpse of how exchanges sometimes devolve into rudeness .

Two recurring themes in online feedback are disdain for most political ideas that stray toward liberalism and a profound loathing for the mainstream media. The online bashing of “liberals,” “leftists” and “socialists” is especially vicious when it is tied to the MSM, whose members are uniformly perceived to be all of the above.

These critics, known as “flamers” in the jargon of cyberspace, seem unmindful of the contradiction involved in using The Virginian-Pilot’s resources to denigrate its integrity. Essentially, they are eating our lunch and, with their mouths full of food, denouncing the menu.

Observers agree that the shield of anonymity accounts for the absence of restraint in cyberspace.

According to P.M. Forni, a Johns Hopkins University professor who has studied civility, “Anonymity takes away some of our incentives to behave as decent people.”

But Kelly McBride, ethics guru at the Poynter Institute in Florida, a journalism think tank, , notes that while online users whose comments are racist, intolerant and hateful try to monopolize the debate, they don’t account for a majority.

“The conversation is not the marketplace of ideas we envisioned in journalism school,” McBride observed. “However, the question is not do we allow this to exist or do we get rid of it. The question is, how do we make this the best that it can be in service of journalism?”

For starters, that will require toning down the volume on the “flamers,” which in turn will create a more welcoming atmosphere for the voices of moderation.

The abandon with which too many participants ignore the guidelines indicates a need to rethink the decision to decrease the role of moderators. While the strategy of monitoring a first time user’s initial 30 comments amounts to too much oversight, clearly more rather than less oversight is necessary. Editor Denis Finley’s recent invitation to staffers to more closely monitor the online feedback on their stories will likely help to reduce the misinformation posted in reader comments.

Separating comments from news content will diminish their prominence and eliminate confusion between information that meets journalistic standards and the more informal style common to online users.

Clearly, cultivating an engaged online community requires a vigilant effort to maintain a balance between free expression and civilized conversation.

Joyce Hoffmann, the public editor, is an associate professor in the English Department at Old Dominion University. Reach her at (757) 446-2475 or public.editor@pilotonline.com.