Monday, January 31, 2011

A Preface to Page Two

Somewhere out there, perhaps someone is doing a real study of civility, marking all the inroads, chasing down all the editorials, and noting who is calling for it and who is practicing it.

If so, I would imagine the Deseret News is not going unnoticed. There was the editorial following President Packer's General Conference talk. And, there have been other efforts, notably the paper's refusal to publish just any Internet post, regardless how derogatory. (KSL's website has also responded to negative posts. Last I checked, KSL simply was not running a comment board at all, in order to sidestep ugly posts.)

With the advent of online news, comment boards, offering readers' responses, now follow at the end of news articles. That's a fun thing, but unfortunately, the postings can get nasty and distasteful. Months ago, the Deseret News months ago decided to edit out all that it found to be abusive, offensive, off-topic, and misrepresentative.

Ahh, now, the idea of a policing comments will strike some of you as going against all that free speech is about. Those who would argue this would say: Freedom of speech is not something that should be edited. In fact, the definition of freedom of speech is that what you say is not edited.

Fine, then, but freedom of speech doesn't give you the right to barge into a church service, run up to the pulpit, and start a diatribe. It doesn't give you the right to go on any radio station at will. Nor does it give you the right to have run a front-page editorial in the local newspaper. And, it doesn't even give you the right to have every letter to the editor you submit printed.

So, it follows that it doesn't give you the right to post whatever you like -- regardless how surly -- on the comment boards at the end of articles.

When you step on a soapbox provided by another person, that person's freedom of speech should allow them to to set the parameters for discussion.

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