“Ouimet” has nicely summarized an ongoing discussion out there around CBC blogs and commenting:
My anonymous [commenting] brethren in New Brunswick have been shut out of the discussion on the [NB Election] blog and aren’t too happy about it. One has decided to allow anonymous postings to CBC articles on his own blog. As a public service. Ahem.
The guy who runs the NB blog, Jacques Poitras, defends himself by quoting from the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices and sums it up thusly: “What we have here is a collision of a new medium with few rules, and an existing, traditional media organization with its guidelines and policies.”
I’m of two minds about this.
Sure, I’d prefer everyone just stand behind what they say and don’t hide behind an anonymous comment. If you have something to say, say it. I’ve found the quality of discourse to be much higher on web forums and blogs in which people are identified.
But I do recognize that many insiders fear reprisals on the job for saying something critical of the CBC.
That’s the real shame. I’d love to see a culture where constructive criticism and discussion is encouraged and rewarded. That’s how it works at a lot of successful organizations, but we’re clearly not there yet. (Around half of the anonymous commenters on here are posting from within the CBC, judging from their IP address.)
The other reason is technical. It’s quite easy to set up a temporary email address just to receive the verification email (try Mailinator if you’re interested in this) then continue to comment under a pseudonym.
That’s basically why I’ve left anonymous commenting on for this blog. (All comments still have to be approved prior to publication.)
What do you think? Should CBC blogs permit people to leave comments anonymously? Or are such comments lowering the quality of the discussion?
P.S. There are some instances where leaving your legitimate contact information is valuable. For instance, some person who called themselves “Inkwell” (or something like that) posted a comment criticizing my take on Street Cents’ cancellation. It was a fair comment, but s/he pasted in the verbatim text of an entire newspaper article which would have been a copyright violation for me to paste. And I had no way of reaching them to ask them to repost it without the article.
Pity too, because judging from the IP address, the person works for us.
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If you visit my blog at spinkaboutit.blogspot.com you can follow the chain of events. This is another reason why CBC is losing viewers and listeners. Get with the times folks. You’re missing out on a powerful new way to engage the people who foot the CBC’s bill.
You couldn’t just edit Inkwell’s comment?
As I said on my blog (thanks to Spinks for getting me going) a blog post should be judged on the ideas contained within the post and not the name associated with it.
To think that a “name” makes the comments of a blog post any less valid would make the CBC a Flat-Earther.
I am always a little suspicious of anonymous comments left on my own blog, but usually they are just trying to sell me crap so are pretty harmless. Generally I think if you have something worth saying you should stick around to back it up or to engage in a discussion if called upon.
If there are repercusions against cbc insiders for negative comments left on blogs, then the cbc has some pretty insidious problems to worrry about and it sounds as though the atmosphere itself is poisoned there.
I’ma reporter with CBC radio. I agree with Jacques Poitras and the CBC policy. If people have controversial or challenging things to say, they should be willing to put their names behind that. We don’t as a matter of course use anonymous quotes in our news stories — why should we permit them in a blog? I’m sorry but information does have less value if a name is not attached to it…it’s easier for people to say outrageous, provovative or even untrue things if they don’t have to face any consequences or defend their ideas. It’s also not fair if people are criticizing other people or organizations by name, yet not willing to offer their own names. The policy does not make the CBC a “flat-earther”, it means that we are willing to use new technologies, but not willing to abandon journalistic standards that we have employed for years and that have helped build our considerable credibility.
Because, Steve, a blog is seldom, if ever, a “news story” and different rules apply. CBC routinely hides the identity of sources. The difference here is that people hide their identities up front. If you’re really committed to the policy, think back a few decades. Would Woodward and Bernstein have been able to use any of the information Deep Throat leaked to them? In the present day, would you be able to use plain-brown-wrapped official documents dropped over the transom or slid under the doorway by a completely unknown source?
The anonymous poster on a blog (or the pseudonymous one, a distinction few people grasp) can and will “face… consequences or defend their ideas.” Blogs are only sometimes journalism and “journalistic standards that [you] have employed for years” are actually *misapplied* here, *harming* your “considerable credibility.”