Who Is “Investigate The Media”?
[Guest post by DRJ]
I recently posted on a blog claim that the San Francisco Chronicle deletes and bans dissenting comments and commenters.
The blog, Investigate the Media, was linked by Instapundit, Ace, LittleGreenFootballs, and others.
Investigate The Media has only one entry – the SF Chronicle entry – and that makes me curious. I’ve updated the earlier post to reflect my concerns. Does anyone know how I can find out more about this blog?
— DRJ
DRJ – According to the poster, it’s a single purpose/use blog. The author of the post had the following to say in the comments section:
jimjams said…
Anonynous said:
“While I’m here, I would like to say kudos to the owner of this blog for allowing me to post here. I trust you will let me know if I have crossed any lines.”
Everyone is free to comment here. There are rules you must follow. I haven’t deleted any comments yet, and I have no intention to start. Say whatever opinion you want. And if for some reason I do need to delete your comment, you’ll know about it — you’ll see that you have been deleted, unlike the commenters at the Chronicle.
I have no deletion policy, as this blog merely exists for this one post, but I suppose if spambots started dropping comments about V1agra and so forth, I’d have to delete those. Or if someone posted pornography or something like that.
But opinions? Opnions are what it’s all about. Go for it.
November 25, 2007 11:33 PM
daleyrocks (906622) — 11/27/2007 @ 12:12 amDRJ, great catch and thanks for noticing. Of course, this could just simply be their première post… but it begs the question, doesn’t it?
For my part, I don’t have any reason to believe the writer was insincere even if, unlike yourself, he was dismissive of my points when I made them in his site’s comments. I think it was a case of trying to sex-up his legitimate concerns about commentators being banned from major media and blogging sites for simple dissent by throwing in a conspiracy angle with the software. Dastardly software being the sort of thing which attracts media attention because of people’s concerns about technology.
Yet, the behaviour of their software is very widespread and in most cases, like at Patterico.com, unintentional. The writer doesn’t even know what software SF Chronicle uses.
By the way, Pat, it would be better for your commentators whose comments wind up in moderation if they knew the fact for their convenience. Most WordPress themes have the code I provided earlier under DRJ’s previous post, but your custom theme designer had it left out by accident. You could add that again easily and then this behaviour, which some have considered unethical if not confusing, wouldn’t occur here.
(If you do add it, again, remember to remove the ‘curly’ single quotes and replace them with 'straight' single quotes. If you’re not sure how to add it, back up comments.php, email me it to me, and I’ll email it back.)
Christoph (92b8f7) — 11/27/2007 @ 12:40 amMy last comment got ate up by the spam filter. Can you rescue it please?
[Done. It’s now comment #2. — DRJ]
Christoph (92b8f7) — 11/27/2007 @ 12:42 amjimjams admitted in his blog that he recs his own comments on sfgate, heh.
assistant devil's advocate (54f5f2) — 11/27/2007 @ 1:16 amThe most curious aspect of the whole episode is the paper thought they would get away with it.
It is probably impossible for a public forum to perpetuate a fraud for any length of time.
Scott (412f3f) — 11/27/2007 @ 5:22 amIt’s “zombie,” isn’t it?
That’s the impresion I got from the LGF thread on the subject.
I just skimmed it, though. Internet-detective stories are boringly confusing while they’re happening.
Also Not Anybody (ed712b) — 11/27/2007 @ 9:34 amIt’s a blogspot, google-hosted.
Good luck getting a lookup.
mojo (8096f2) — 11/27/2007 @ 11:55 amYou really don’t get it, do you, Scott?
You just see what you want to see and that is it.
Christoph (92b8f7) — 11/27/2007 @ 12:20 pmYes, it is Zombie, of zombietime fame.
Pablo (99243e) — 11/27/2007 @ 6:15 pm