SOUND OFF: Your comment logic is illogical
| Monday, Jan 09 2012 03:00 PM
Last Updated Monday, Jan 09 2012 03:00 PM
The Californian welcomes your comments and suggestions. To offer your input by phone, please call 661-395-7649 and leave your comments in a voice-mail message or send an email to soundoff@bakersfield.com. Please include your name and phone number. Phone numbers and addresses won't be published.
Reader: On Dec. 11, you answered a reader's question regarding why you frequently do not allow comments on on-line stories. Your reply was that you have found that stories that relate to crime or the courts attract many comments that are hurtful or prejudiced in one way or another.
Yet on both on-line stories on Dec. 17, regarding the fatal accident involving the KCSO unit and two pedestrians [in Oildale], you allowed comments. The majority of comments were anti-law enforcement and contained many assumptions from people as to what happened.
Was allowing comments done in an effort to help people bash law enforcement, or was it one of those situations where someone temporarily decided to change your rules?
Brad Roark
Bakersfield
Arthur: I answered Brad by saying that in general we disallow comments on police stories. However, on the weekend of the Oildale deaths, some stories were left open to comments. That was both inadvertent on our part (Friday night's stories were rushed into print and to the web) and helpful, as we got many good comments that we used to shape future stories.
Brad then replied:
Reader: Thanks you, John, for your reply.
Recently a BPD patrol officer was arrested for possessing and using meth. He was investigated and arrested by the department, as he should have been. But no comments were allowed on the articles relating to this incident. Do you not think that this would not generate a worthwhile debate? I'm sure it would have.
What about the Public Defender Investigator being investigated for using the CJIS system to illegally access info? That could lead to some good debate.
And what about BPD Officer Stringer pleading guilty to a charge on his DUI case? That could have been a great debate too.
I have no involvement in any of these cases, but don't you think being consistent in your policies regarding what you allow people to comment on would make TBC look a little less biased?
Brad Roark
Arthur: Not sure what kind of bias you are suggesting -- pro-law enforcement or anti. We will continue to look at stories on a case-by-case basis but in general we have found police, crime and court stories to be a sometimes awkward forum for comments.
I guess I would say we reserve the right to make exceptions to our own rules. I hope we can do so without suggesting bias, one way or another.
Your thoughts will be helpful as we debate this over time. Thanks.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reader: The devil, they say, is in the details, and as a newspaper subscriber and reader, I expect and demand details.
In Thursday's story this week about the wrecks on Highway 99 that occurred Wednesday, no cross street was named to pinpoint the backup. While that does me little good the next day, it is still something that I as a reader am interested in knowing. (Please don't use the excuse that the story was prepared by a law enforcement agency... It is the newspaper's job to be sure the facts are all there.)
In Friday's paper, numerous detail issues popped up. Whomever wrote the story on Page 6 about the housing market should be instructed in the difference between "breaks" and "brakes" as in slowing down. (Courtenay Edelhart got it right in her interview with Dan Klingenberger on page 14.)
And on page 39 in your Digest column, the first item on the tragic shootout in Utah does not specify a community where it happened.
Oh, and please mention to Herb Benham that when speaking (writing) about the size of typefaces, it isn't "36-font size" but "36-point size".
Just a few words from your friendly curmudgeon.
Gregg K. Knowles
Bakersfield
Arthur: Guilty as charged. The shootout was in Ogden. Sorry.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reader: I just finished reading your story in Monday's paper about the Rose Parade and the actions of protesters, described in the first two paragraphs of the story. If you go to print with the story around midnight, How is it possible to report on the actions of the protesters at the parade before the parade even got started?
Gary Johannesen
Arthur: Smart as we are, we can't predict the future. In fact, this story as originally written referred to plans for protests and preparations that were expected to take place on Monday. As far as I have been able to determine, a comedy of editing errors resulted a story that looked ahead to something that hadn't yet happened.
This was a serious mistake and we're still trying to determine how it happened.
Our story the next day described the parade and the protests -- accurately.
Apologies. This feedback forum is designed to give readers a way to voice criticisms and compliments or ask questions about news coverage. Your questions -- which may be edited for space -- are answered each Sunday by Executive Editor John Arthur. Sound Off
