Let me bring you up to date on the latest on the weirdness that is the Centre Daily Times.
First, Bob wrote another blog post about CDT Watch in which he defends himself, explains he's not defensive, and tells us why he took offense at that blog. Oh, and he condescendingly refers to the anonymous CDT Watch blogger as immature.
A new controversy also surrounds the paper. Last Tuesday the paper ran a story about a contentious State College Area School District board meeting the night before-big surprise there. The comment section affixed to the article soon filled up with the typical board bashing which we've come to know and love. And as the paper sometime does it pulled down the comments by the end of the day. They never explain why they do this which causes much speculation. Then on Wednesday the paper wrote an editorial in which one of the now publicly unavailable comments was quoted. Judging from the comments affixed to the editorial that upset a few people. Then someone who had saved the comments on their own computer before they were deleted posted them over at the Voices Web site and also posted a heads up for other commenters on the CDT editorial comments. The CDT responded by sending a DMCA cease and desist order to Voices.
To be fair, once the posting of the deleted comments was publicly brought to their attention, it may be that the CDT had no choice but to enforce their copyright claim in oder to preserve such claims in the future. (Ha Mace, you've taken journalism law. What do you think?)
The bottom line is that not all is happy here in Happy Valley.
First, Bob wrote another blog post about CDT Watch in which he defends himself, explains he's not defensive, and tells us why he took offense at that blog. Oh, and he condescendingly refers to the anonymous CDT Watch blogger as immature.
A new controversy also surrounds the paper. Last Tuesday the paper ran a story about a contentious State College Area School District board meeting the night before-big surprise there. The comment section affixed to the article soon filled up with the typical board bashing which we've come to know and love. And as the paper sometime does it pulled down the comments by the end of the day. They never explain why they do this which causes much speculation. Then on Wednesday the paper wrote an editorial in which one of the now publicly unavailable comments was quoted. Judging from the comments affixed to the editorial that upset a few people. Then someone who had saved the comments on their own computer before they were deleted posted them over at the Voices Web site and also posted a heads up for other commenters on the CDT editorial comments. The CDT responded by sending a DMCA cease and desist order to Voices.
To be fair, once the posting of the deleted comments was publicly brought to their attention, it may be that the CDT had no choice but to enforce their copyright claim in oder to preserve such claims in the future. (Ha Mace, you've taken journalism law. What do you think?)
The bottom line is that not all is happy here in Happy Valley.
2 comments:
The comment deletion they practice is ridiculous. I think somebody just needs to create a space, external to their website, where we can all comment on CDT articles without fear of being deleted by the CDT. Has anyone tried to take a more official route to get a policy statement from them on this practice? People should be told exactly what they should expect, including deletion, before they agree to leave their comments there.
I also left a similar comment to this on Bob's blog (if it gets published). It seems to me that the CDT is failing to recognize the constructive feedback and opportunities for improvement that exist within this criticisim that Bob says he welcomes openly. Just because the CDT has done good deeds in its coverage of the housing issue, or other subjects in the past, does not mean that it's succeeded across the board. One of the glaringly wrong things about the way the CDT functions is the "comments" issue, where people's comments on articles are deleted at the sole discretion of the CDT - comments without vulgarity or insult, but things that are simply not on par with what perspective the CDT wants the public to believe. The more the CDT does this, the more angry the general public who reads and responds to its articles becomes, and the more likely the CDT is to face this public criticism that he simply chalks up to immaturity. It's time for Bob Heisse to take a listen to the feedback and consider whether there are also areas where the CDT fails miserably. He can be a voice for making the CDT an outlet for the Centre region public to express its opinions publicly and fairly, or he can sit back and allow the public to do so on other websites where he has no control, and will only be able watch and rebut from his own blog. I'd think he would want to be an active participant and pay attention to the opinions of the public who supports the CDT.
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