ToMA: Ignorance runs rampant in online comments
City bureaucrat Linda Hartmann steps up to defend her co-workers from the "hateful diatribes" in the online comments, and calls on the editors to quit publishing them.
The twist in her undies is clearly caused by the Elks Theatre intrigue, but she won't talk about that directly. She thinks Steve Norwood is the best city manager in recent memory (she's wrong -- Mark Stevens was a fair bit smarter -- but they've all been mediocre at best), that Prescott PD is above reproach (wrong again, of course), and our Council is "doing what they think is right," which to Ms Hartmann apparently equates with "doing the right thing." She dogs on former employees who criticize current ones. She goes on for 800 words or so refuting the "uninformed" commenters, but ends by claiming she doesn't care what they think.
I can understand how a white, salaried, mid-level City desk worker could sincerely believe all these things. What she lacks is experience dealing with City Hall as an outsider. Courier employees often express the same sort of institutional defensiveness. It's to be expected. But it demonstrates how hard it can be to communicate with City employees about the problems they create and participate in. A far better response would be to give people the benefit of the doubt and try to see how you can be part of the solution.
This is the second major public display of official sensitivity about Courier comments, following the Mayor's attempt to strongarm Deb Thurston a few months ago. It demonstrates that many City employees and elected officials pay close attention to the comments on an ongoing basis, therefore the comments are a strong tool for communicating with City Hall. I would hope that might make commenters a little more serious about what they're writing.
Ms Hartmann is correct, of course, that a lot of comments are idiotic, emotionally driven BS and gratuitous and often unwarranted personal attacks. (She misses that her own opinions here are emotional and poorly informed.) She's also right that anonymity increases incivility. The commenters who defend anonymity don't realize how many reasonable, informed and civil people are so put off by the uncivil environment that they refrain from getting involved. This has all been true since online communities began in the '80s and it will always be true. With more personal skin in the game, there's a lot less venting and lying. Registration and real names would be a good and responsible thing for the Courier to institute.
Regular readers know that I'm very skeptical about the claim that using one's own name on a comment commonly leads to harassment by employers or ideological opponents. I've been a high-profile commenter taking unpopular positions for years without any untoward social consequences other than the odd hairy eyeball from a certain Courier employee. If you're afraid of consequences, what makes it so important to comment on the paper? Like as not you're really just afraid of shadows. Try taking a few months off from TV and see how you feel about it then.
Bonus track, Wednesday: A comment appears today titled "The Susan Thomas Story," in which the commmenter pulls some interesting research from the Courier archive. Excellent!
4 comments:
Steve,
Deb Thurston posted a comment on dCourier.com that was critical of the City of Prescott spending $250,000 on the Old Clubhouse at Antelope Hills. She then received an invitation from Tourism Director Don Prince to meet with Mayor Kuykendall. When she arrived, Prince, Kuykendall and Councilman Lamerson were waiting. She did not know the purpose of the meeting going in, but soon found out as Mayor Kuykendall proceeded to give her a verbal tongue lashing for her impertinent (to him) comments. That was Tuesday morning at 9:00AM. Deb Thurston then showed up at the City Council meeting that afternoon and told the council she did not appreciate the tongue-lashing. Mayor Kuykendall later tried to spin his verbal tongue-lashing as explaining how government works. That was sensitivity incident one.
Sensitivity issue two was when Dawn Castaneda and other Elks Opera House co-workers accused Administrative Services Manager Mic Fenech of creating a hostile work environment. That led to the infamous battering ram incident while the City of Prescott Police had both Dawn and Gabe Castaneda under active surveillance and knew they were not at home.
Sensitivity issue three occurred when KayAnne Riley, acting as a private citizen, had the gumption to call a spade a spade in the Dawn Castaneda incident. All of the sudden Mayor Kuykendall’s breakfast partner and Yavapai Humane Society board member Marty Goodman meets with YHS Executive Director Ed Boks. It was reported to me that Marty Goodman told Boks that KayAnne’s actions in the Dawn Castaneda incident “…were damaging his relationship with the mayor.” Since YHS has a contract with the City of Prescott that contains a cancellation clause, the implication was that contract was at risk.
Sensitivity issue four was the Talk of the Town by Linda Hartman. Did you note Marty Goodman posting a comment on that?
The above are four incidents that readily come to mind, but they establish a pattern. Do it my way, shut your mouth or suffer the consequences. Still have some doubts above this? What happened to the promised public debate about the Field of Dreams ballpark complex? If it is so great, let us discuss it openly and get an independent Return on Investment analysis to prove the wild benefit claims espoused by City Manager Steve Norwood. I actually did a blog post on that situation at my Prescott Insights blog called “Field of Dreams or Pipe dream?” at http://prescottazinsights.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/field-of-dreams-or-pipe-dream/
Jack D. Wilson
Former Prescott Mayor
Nov 2007 – Nov 2009
Something's wiggy with Blogger at present -- I got this comment notice via email but it's not appearing on the blog. From Jack Wilson:
Steve,
Deb Thurston posted a comment on dCourier.com that was critical of the City of Prescott spending $250,000 on the Old Clubhouse at Antelope Hills. She then received an invitation from Tourism Director Don Prince to meet with Mayor Kuykendall. When she arrived, Prince, Kuykendall and Councilman Lamerson were waiting. She did not know the purpose of the meeting going in, but soon found out as Mayor Kuykendall proceeded to give her a verbal tongue lashing for her impertinent (to him) comments. That was Tuesday morning at 9:00AM. Deb Thurston then showed up at the City Council meeting that afternoon and told the council she did not appreciate the tongue-lashing. Mayor Kuykendall later tried to spin his verbal tongue-lashing as explaining how government works. That was sensitivity incident one.
Sensitivity issue two was when Dawn Castaneda and other Elks Opera House co-workers accused Administrative Services Manager Mic Fenech of creating a hostile work environment. That led to the infamous battering ram incident while the City of Prescott Police had both Dawn and Gabe Castaneda under active surveillance and knew they were not at home.
Sensitivity issue three occurred when KayAnne Riley, acting as a private citizen, had the gumption to call a spade a spade in the Dawn Castaneda incident. All of the sudden Mayor Kuykendall’s breakfast partner and Yavapai Humane Society board member Marty Goodman meets with YHS Executive Director Ed Boks. It was reported to me that Marty Goodman told Boks that KayAnne’s actions in the Dawn Castaneda incident “…were damaging his relationship with the mayor.” Since YHS has a contract with the City of Prescott that contains a cancellation clause, the implication was that contract was at risk.
Sensitivity issue four was the Talk of the Town by Linda Hartman. Did you note Marty Goodman posting a comment on that?
The above are four incidents that readily come to mind, but they establish a pattern. Do it my way, shut your mouth or suffer the consequences. Still have some doubts above this? What happened to the promised public debate about the Field of Dreams ballpark complex? If it is so great, let us discuss it openly and get an independent Return on Investment analysis to prove the wild benefit claims espoused by City Manager Steve Norwood. I actually did a blog post on that situation at my Prescott Insights blog called “Field of Dreams or Pipe dream?” at http://prescottazinsights.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/field-of-dreams-or-pipe-dream/
Jack D. Wilson
Former Prescott Mayor
Nov 2007 – Nov 2009
I hadn't heard about the Goodman-Boks story, fascinating. Thanks Jack!
I also tried through the Courier blog to get Goodman to comment, but the Courier killed the comment as usual. The Courier is spending more time censoring comments than actual investigative reporting. I hope that they soon become involved in litigation with the citizens as this censorship is getting old.
Let me reiterate that I'm happy to host comments that the Courier rejects (within the bounds of reasonable discourse, of course). I encourage commenters to keep copies of what they post on the Courier site until those comments appear. If they don't appear, post them here. Bear in mind that if you're paraphrasing yourself, it's hard to tell whether you fairly violated the terms of service, so a direct copy is better.
As for litigation over censorship, sorry, you've got no case, however egregious the offense. Readers have exactly no "right" to have their opinions published in the press. It doesn't belong to us.
All we can do is spread the word -- using clear, understandable proofs and evidence -- when the editors engage in arbitrary and political censorship, and let public opinion do the rest.
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