It was brought to my attention yesterday that the Evansville Courier and Press website was not allowing comments on the article about the Police officer charged with forcing a women to perform oral sex. Thanks to @brianwolf on Twitter for the heads up and I agree, of all the articles on the Courier and Press, why not allow comments on this one?
As of this posting there are no posting comments allowed in the original breaking article or on the updated court appearance article. So what reasons would explain CourierPress.com shutting down feedback?
It just seems peculiar, with so many controversial stories on the Courier Press website, why block this one? Please discuss or chime in here with your responses, guesses, or inside scoop.
*Update 9:26 am
Received an explanation from Ryan Reynolds via email, which states that CourierPress.com has a standing policy that news articles containing any sort of sexual crime will not have comments enabled. In the case that they are enabled by default, once it is brought to their attention all comments will be removed and then closed. Below is a short excerpt from the email.
For generations, the journalism community has sought to try to keep a delicate and difficult situation from becoming worse for victims of sex crimes. The Courier and Press has had a standing, long-term policy not to name the victims of a sex crime in news accounts to help protect that individual, be they child or adult, from the ugly stain of the public embarrassment that is associated with a rape, molestation, etc.
Because we cannot guarantee that someone in the community could undo that policy, whether deliberately or unintentionally, by naming the victim in comments, we have decided comments will not be allowed on sex crime stories.
Seems like a completely acceptable policy to me, but they should indicate their intent somewhere in the footer of the article. Or instead of just having people guess as to why comments are closed, have a footer that explains exactly what is said in this email. It’s a decision I can respect.
http://tinyurl.com/ljz96c – If this was true then a search for Kirk Brantley would show that comments are allowed on these stories.
Maybe this article hasn’t been brought to their attention yet? Hard to say, conspiracy theories abound.