In recent days I have done something I haven’t done in my eight-plus years of publication at East Cobb News: restricted comments about some posts on our Facebook page.
Not surprisingly, the stories were about hot-button political topics that were merely informing the community about upcoming or ongoing political events.
And, not surprisingly, a handful of readers—whose previous comments about political topics on our Facebook page have been a massive headache for yours truly and have been abusive to other readers—have been griping about not being able to dump their trash on our lawn.
So they complained on other posts on our Facebook page, which, if they had read our comments policy, are not allowed. Their comments were removed.
If anyone persists in making comments that are not germane to a particular topic, either on the site or on our Facebook page, they will be banned. Permanently. There will be no second chances.
If you think I’m kidding, think again.
Our story links and social media pages are not depositories for your rage, idiotic trolling or inability to understand what a news story is.
But these abusive readers—who as far as I can tell are across the political spectrum—don’t care about abiding by a comments policy anyway.
Most of you do, and for that I apologize. Our comments policy has been generous and almost all of you who have commented have followed these reasonable rules of the road.
Our Facebook page has been the best place for engagement for what we post at East Cobb News, and the persistence of these toxic comments has the potential to drive readers away.
Indeed, over the last few months, it has been been very challenging to promote a robust community dialogue at East Cobb News. From the start, fostering constructive discussion has been a core part of my editorial mission.
I may be tilting at windmills here, but I still believe that our citizens can disagree—strongly—and still be civil to one another. Most of you are, and it is the hallmark of a healthy community when the best traditions of free speech are exercised.
After last month’s Charlie Kirk vigil, however, I have been thinking about making some changes. For now, there will be some stories, like the two over the past week, for which comments will be limited to the story link only.
After you read the story, you can leave your comment at the bottom of that post—again, you must actually follow the comments policy. But you won’t be able to comment on that post on our Facebook page.
This will be decided on a story-by-story basis. If comments on other stories posted on our Facebook page get out of hand, they also will be subject to being turned off.
It’s really all up to you, our readers. And specifically, to the tiny handful of you who are the source of the problem.
This isn’t something that I wanted to do, as other news publishers have given up the ghost on allowing comments altogether. We’ve got so many other things to do on a continual basis, especially on a busy news day like this one already has been.
For all the advantages of online media, the unwillingness of some grown but obviously rather childish adults to honor simple parameters for decent behavior has always been a concern.
In these overheated political times, it’s gotten worse; in fact it’s as disgusting as anytime I can remember in my 40-plus years as a professional journalist.
I do appreciate those of you who take the time to leave comments and abide by our policy; I especially appreciate your readership. It makes East Cobb News better and it has helped us to have a strong reputation with readers in our community.
If you value what you get from East Cobb News—which comes to you without a paywall—please consider making a financial contribution today. We love nothing more than giving you the local news that you love, but we can’t do this without you.
So thanks, again, for your readership, and for your patience. And feel free to reach out about this or anything else: editor@eastcobbnews.com.
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