Quieting The Noise

This week, the Express News Group will take a step long discussed but never implemented until now: Anonymous commenting — in fact, commenting of all types — is being eliminated from 27east.com.

A small portion of our readership will scream, “Censorship!” (people really do need to look up the actual meaning of that word), and read it as an attempt to stifle discussion. But to the overwhelming majority, it will come as a relief.

Which is the point. When 27east.com first launched at the turn of the century, commenting on the website was an expansion of the conversation readers could have with the newspaper and with each other, beyond letters to the editor — more immediate, less formal. In the early days, it often was a place for respectful, thoughtful discourse.

Those days are long gone. As with so many other newspaper sites, story comments are hijacked for extended political diatribes, often with precious little to do with the story at hand. Behind the cloak of a screen name, people are emboldened to unleash thoughts that many likely wouldn’t share in polite company, or publicly if their names were attached.

There is a cluster of commenters that dominates — to use a word pulled from recent headlines — and has bullied and crowded out everyone else. Worse, the comments are now seen as antithetical to reasoned discussion: People avoid leaving comments for fear of reprisals. In fact, at the recent protests, several participants declined to comment to reporters on the proceedings, precisely fearing that they would become the subjects of vitriol in the story’s comments.

That is a sign that a threshold has been crossed. It is now nothing more than noise.

So we’re shutting it down. We’re not alone — quietly, or not-so-quietly, other newspapers in the region and nationally have made the same choice over the last year or two. It’s a sad statement, but it has become a place that offers little value these days. There’s nothing new being said, no respect, no polite exchange of differing opinions. It’s a cesspool, frankly, most of the time.

Today, there are so many ways this newspaper group engages with readers and the wider community. There is, of course, social media, where the stories are parsed, shared and commented upon — typically, and importantly, with names and faces attached. It’s not perfect, but it’s better.

Interaction with readers, and giving them a voice, are key missions for this newspaper group. There are letters to the editor. There are public events. The editors are easily reached by email; each address is published weekly. This is not an attempt to silence.

But it is an attempt to quell the noise that engulfs us, a small effort to quiet the nonsense and allow people to try to discuss and debate, with some degree of decorum. It won’t solve the problems we face in this country, as far as the decline in reasoned discourse and the rise in angry proselytizing passing as “comment.”

But it’s a statement: We won’t contribute to it any longer.