Media Curmudgeon

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October 12, 2007

NY Times’ Front Page Wingnut Deniers

At about 9:00 a.m. this morning the lead story on the NY Times’ website was “Gore and U.N. Panel Win Peace Prize for Climate Work,” and just to the right a picture of a man holding a big picture of Al Gore with the caption, “Above, the chairman of the Nobel Committee.” Directly underneath, in larger, bold blue type, was “Comment by Benjamin Toresco: “Discredits the Nobel Prize...who will be next year, Michael Moore?” About forty minutes later the comment had been updated; the new one by Richard Sypher read, “The Nobel Committee continues its efforts of rewarding left-wing alarmists.”

I think posting these negative comments points out a huge dilemma for the Times and other online news content providers. What was the Times attempting to communicate by posting these comments and what did it communicate? Is posting comments to the lead story a good idea or a bad idea? My first reaction to the “Discredits the Nobel Prize” comment was outrage. How could the Times give front-webpage attention to a wingnut? How could the Times give credence to such crap?

So I went to the Comments page to see for myself. When I checked it at about 9:40 a.m., there were 258 comments. A large majority of them were favorable—praising Gore and the Nobel Committee. But many were negative, such as the comments mentioned above. One by Jack was, “Who is Al Gore. Never heard of him. George Bush should have won the peace prize. ‘Peace Through Strength.’” Or, “Al Gore is a fake. I cannot believe a person with such disregard for the truth could win this award,” by Harold Majors. I was aghast. How long had these people been living in the state of Denial, clearly America’s 51st state?

But there were other offsetting comments: “Excellent. Now expect a massive political attack from the right wing,” by Larry Cunningham. And a comment by Hudson at 9:09 that expressed my gut reaction, “Why is there a comment from some wingnut global warming denier featured on the front page of the NYT website?”

Then I went to the Wall Street Journal’s website at about 10:15 where I figured I’d find some more sentiments of wingnut global warming deniers. The WSJ’s top story was about Gore’s prize, and it had a poll under the lead paragraph, “Do you agree with the choice for Nobel Peace Prize?” Guess what: Yes, 42%; No, 58%.

I went back to the NY Times website at 10:30 a.m. to see if it was continuing to post negative comments under the story. The Times now had two Comments posted, one negative (on top) and one positive, so the Times’ online editors must have had second thoughts posting excerpts from just negative comments and were trying to include some balance. It was clear editors were reading the comments and posting excerpts from some, had read Harold’s wingnut denier comment, and realized there was a problem.

I think the Times is doing a good thing by allowing comments from readers, it engages readers by giving them the opportunity for feedback and input. It transfers some of the power of the press to the people and creates a dialogue on important issues. It’s a way to expose the pulse of the people and the diversity and depth of opinions and prejudices. After thinking about it, I believe it’s good to headline some of the negative comments on a story. I would hope the Times has learned from this incidence that it needs to do more careful editing of the comments and keep some balance so that it isn’t showing just one side.

I also realize that my initial reaction of outrage that the Times would give credence to a wingnut’s ranting by headlining it under the lead story was, as typical, impulsive. And rather than being outraged, I should be grateful for the opportunity to see that Al Gore’s campaign to alert the world to the perils of global warming has merely taken a giant first step of a long, difficult journey of education. Reading the wingnut deniers’ vitriol informs me that I have a lot more to do personally, that I can’t let Al do it all, and that it’s going to be an unbelievably tough battle to pass the necessary laws and regulations needed to save the wingnut deniers’ children and grandchildren from burning up.

It’s too late to save the wingnuts, but we might be able to save their future generations—the uneducated wingnut deniers sure won’t.

Posted by Charles Warner at October 12, 2007 12:35 PM

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Media Curmudgeon at October 12, 2007 03:39 PM writes:

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