Thursday, October 8, 2009

Barney Fife Editing......(Mr. Cobler)

Labeling some small town cops scratching their head, saying "they don't want to come out, whaddya think we oughta do now"?, as a standoff or anything remotely resembling a standoff, speaks volumes about your editor's reasoning when he swings the axe on the forums.......

One of the core values of journalism is accountability," he said. "We wanted to learn more about how to engage readers online while remaining true to the core values of journalism." So banning dissenting viewpoints, and deleting comments you don't agree with, is what you learned in the process of "how to engage readers"? Where is the accountability in that?

If anyone seems reluctant or fearful of attending the town hall meeting, I would suggest that it is those you have coddled and protected from being held accountable for their words, by deleting and banning other readers of longer tenure and more prone to think their words through. They know that to come out in public, they run the risk of being put on the spot in a place where you can't offer them your protective "editing" expertise.

4 comments:

Edith Ann said...

Perfect!

HiEyeQue said...

I recently engaged mr Cobler over the headline and the use of the word Stakeout. He suggested standoff instead and on further details, it could be a stretch to call it a standoff. a reeeaaaallll loooonnggg stretch.

but just today another headline misleads to public to think an officer was killed in an accident at the range rather than by the heart attack he suffered. While the story was clear, the headline was totally misleading.

Chris in his infinite wisdom refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem and so the disintegration of VicAd as a credible newsource continues.

Edith Ann said...

Well, for those of you who watched the Advocate editorial meeting, aka, the daily meeting of the Brain Trust, I was the irate caller mentioned. Called Cobler at 8:02 a.m.

Cobler defended the misleading headline to me by saying it was accurate--the officer died during a weapons training. Refused to agree that it was misleading.

They are such idiots down at the VA.

HiEyeQue--Personally, I don't think you have a standoff until one party says, "Come out with your hands up!" and the other party says, "No!". I agree the 'standoff' was a stretch.

I'm wondering if subscribing to the Refugio County Press, the Goliad Texan, the Cuero Record, the Jackson County Herald and the Port Lavaca Wave would just not be the smarter thing to do?

Sugar Magnolia said...

One more suggestion - the once-weekly publication of the Yoakum Herald-Times is worth the subscription price (geez, I never thought I would say that), I mean relative to the VicAd. NO sensationalism, a nice recapping of the previous weeks' events, good photography, mostly local yokel stories, but WITHOUT TYPOS and tabloid-type photos. It is a real, down-to-earth small town newspaper. DROP the VicAd.