Two brands of Distilled Media, yet polar opposite positions on sensitive news, why?

Earthwalker · 21-08-2013 01:54PM #1

Two or three times over the past year or so I have noticed that Boards.ie has taken action to prevent it's members discussing certain news stories that have been prevalent in the media. Each time this has occured I have read the relevant posts made by admin on threads that were either subsequently locked or opened here in FB questioning the decision to declare a discussion blackout of a particular story and in my opinion, the reasoning given on each of those occasions, has never amounted to anything close to sufficient reasoning and quite frankly, has more often than, been stunningly contradictory and patronising to the community as a whole.

It beggars belief that if anyone clicks on scrolls down to the bottom of any Boards.ie webpage, there is a link to thejournal.ie, where they will find articles on there very topics, with discussions taking place but yet here we are on Distilled Media's dedicated discussion forum and we're all told that it discussion on there stories is not allowed.

Let's take a look at some of the reasoning. We are told that Boards.ie doesn't want to part and parcel of bullying etc, especially if the people at the centre of the stories is underage. Commendable but discussion on these stories does not need to contribute to the clear nasty element that exists online, indeed good discussion can and should address it, negate it even. thejournal.ie don't seen to have a problem moderating abusive and derogatory comments made about those at the centre of there stories and so I fail to see why Boards.ie would (even if it meant locking such threads from midnight to 9am if deemed necessary). As for the often touted nonsense about not being allowed to discuss matters under investigation or in the courts, this seems to be something that is far from accurate as many threads have been started that about those under investigation and/or going through the courts which contained thousandrs of posts and remain open to this very day.

In short: I would appreciate (and I'm sure others would too) an explanation on why it is that two brands of Distilled Media, can have such differing approaches to the same sensitive news stories. One allows debate on them and clearly feels capable of moderating it, while the other one (the dedicated 'discussion' forum) doesn't. I get that thejournal.ie and Boards.ie are not one in the same of course but you are two branches of the same tree at the end of the day.

Have no wish to get into the specifics of any of the three news items which I am alluding to here and see no reason why admin would need to either in order to address the points which I raised, primarily which is that I feel that if responsible, respectful, moderateed debate and discussion can take place on thejournal.ie, regarding sensitive matters in the news, then I fail to see why it also can't on Boards.ie.

Boards.ie: Nicola · 21-08-2013 02:26PM

Boards.ie and TheJournal.ie are two separate businesses, with our own rules, posting guidelines, legal teams and advice on what we can and can't allow.

TheJournal reports on news, we host discussion and sometimes we decide not to have discussions about certain topics for any number of reasons.

Tom Dunne · 21-08-2013 02:35PM

Despite being owned by the one company, the ethos of both sites is radically different. In the few years I have been an Admin, I do not recall ever being told by anyone in Boards.ie HQ that a direction came from above on a topic. From my limited understanding of how the company operates, they are very hands-off when it comes to this site.

I despair for humanity when I read some of the ill-informed nonsense posted on that site and take pride in the fact that we have a good standard of discussion here. Generally.

Earthwalker · 21-08-2013 03:14PM

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

Boards.ie and TheJournal.ie are two separate businesses, with our own rules, posting guidelines, legal teams and advice on what we can and can't allow.

I appreciate that and before I was a member here, I took part in some threads on another forum where I defended Boards.ie's position a few times and so wouldn't suggest they should be one and same on all matters, especially given Boards unique history.

TheJournal reports on news, we host discussion and sometimes we decide not to have discussions about certain topics for any number of reasons.

Well that's the point I am trying to make, that thejournal host debate also. In fact, one of their most recent articles regarding a story that Boards has prevented discussion on, has well over 500 comments at this stage. All of which is well moderateed and in my opinion remains repeatful to all parties involved. In fact I would say the debate in fact I would say the debate there addresses, and quite well, the nasty element that is free to comment of the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Surely that can only help the situation as one look at the likes and dislikes shows you clearly were the moral majority stand on this. Seems everywhere else they are getting drowned out by the bottomfeeders.

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Despite being owned by the one company, the ethos of both sites is radically different. In the few years I have been an Admin, I do not recall ever being told by anyone in Boards.ie HQ that a direction came from above on a topic. From my limited understanding of how the company operates, they are very hands-off when it comes to this site.

Well I hope I didn't suggest that anyting else was the case. Wasn't my intention.

I despair for humanity when I read some of the ill-informed nonsense posted on that site and take pride in the fact that we have a good standard of discussion here. Generally.

I would agree with you when it comes to some of the articles but by and large I feel the heavily supported comments in the discussion section usually are the ones I would also agree with and they quite often don't agree agree with the author. In fact, I would say that more often than not, they don't.

Dav · 21-08-2013 04:30PM

TheJournal's staff handle the moderation, for the most part they are professional journalists with legal training in areas of publishing law, so my guess is they're both better equipped and far more capable of identifying trouble. Our mods are volunteers and of the office staff we have, none of us have a legal or publishing background - our legal knowledge has been passed on by some sessions with TJ McIntyre There are a lot more people using their real names on TheJournal's comment's sections too because of signing in with Twitter or Facebook, so tracking down the source of a legally questionable comment is considerably easier for them than it would be for us - of course it's not difficult to set up a troll account, but they're usually easy to spot over there.

Femme_Fatale · 21-08-2013 10:11PM

Is it not a good thing that they operate independently of each other? If the two organisations shared the same views and approach to moderation, no doubt someone here would be complaining about a Murdoch-esque biased corporate agenda.

Can't win.

Earthwalker · 21-08-2013 11:23PM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Is it not a good thing that they operate independently of each other?

I've already said that I understand that they are not one in the same. Again, my point is that it seems rather absurd that a user can click on thejournal.ie link at the bottom of any Boards page and immediately debate and discuss stories which they are forbidden form doing here.

We're not talking about small matters. We are talking about news items which the administration of this forum has stated, cannot be discussed due to the possibility that there might be legal ramifications if they did so and that to me seems quite odd as their sister brand (thejournal.ie) which is owned by the same Publishers (Distilled Media) seem to have no such worries in that regard and quite openly write about and allow debate on, freely.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think some of the comments they allow are nothing short of a disgrace, but at least they don't have a total blackout on stories like Boards had with the last two high profile news stories that come to mind and I just simply don't believe that 'no discussion' is a better than 'well moderateed discussion', for anyone. Well, not unless you can also muzzle everyone on Facebook and Twitter that is. Otherwise though, silencing the members of Boards.ie has little or no positive effect as their number are too great. However, at least if you have good moderateed debate on these issues, it can at least go some way to addressing the vile hatred which seems to be winning out there at the minute and as I said earlier, well intentioned debate by the kind of people that frequent Boards could go a long way to rebalancing debates that are out of control elsewhere. I think locking down discussions is tantamount to saying that the userbase here is not capable of reasoned discussion, that is respectful to those at the heart of news stories which may be quite vulnerable and I just don't believe that is true.

Today I discussed one of there stories with family and friends as it was splashed over the front pages, yet here I am on Ireland's largest discussion forum and I can't discuss it here. That can't be right, it just can't.

P_1 · 22-08-2013 12:14AM

Two different sites, two different philosophies, policies, staff and presumably budgets.

Boards is volunteer based, the majority of it's content is organic (posts by users) and as Dav posted, it's staff (while no doube brilliant) aren't qualified in journalism or law. The site has a policy of not facilitating discussion of ongoing garda investigations and it's well documented that there is a fear of one legal case sinking the site.

The Journal is moderated by paid staff, the majority of it's content is inorganic (articles and the like) and presumably the staff who moderate comments are qualified in journalism and law. Seeing as it markets itself as a kind of online newspaper it stands to reason that they'd publish details on garda investigations and the like and I'm guessing that the fact that all commentators names seem to be published it probably has some form of protection from being sued for any comments on it.

Pelvis Parsley · 22-08-2013 12:31PM

Agreed. The journal however, has a very blatant agenda. The reporting there is rarely impartial, and in the main reflects the political and sociological views of the staffers rather than attempting to be fair and right down the middle.

Boards, because of the sheer number of users and volunteer staffers does not. It is its posts, and understandably errs on the side of caution for that reason, more often than not. The likes of the journal is far easier to police, given that they only post what suits them. They rely far more on post reports too.

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Is it not a good thing that they operate independently of each other? If the two organisations shared the same views and approach to moderation, no doubt someone here would be complaining about a Murdoch-esque biased corporate agenda.

Can't win.

nesf · 22-08-2013 11:57PM

Pelvis Parsley wrote: »

Agreed. The journal however, has a very blatant agenda. The reporting there is rarely impartial, and in the main reflects the political and sociological views of the staffers rather than attempting to be fair and right down the middle.

Name me a media site or paper or whatever that isn't like the above. Almost always, we're talking about by how much not if they are or not.

Pelvis Parsley · 23-08-2013 12:26AM

Agreed. Most media is biased by its very nature, ( be it advertising-who the editor knows etc.) We tend to do extremes in this country, as with the Harrises, the Indo, FF, et al.

But, thejournal takes it to a whole new level. I wondered for a while was it pressure from the lads who own the thing, but as with boards, I'd imagine they are hands off, which is a wise philosophy. I think-and it is an assumption, but the pattern is clear-you have one or two people in that office who recruited everyone else, and push the stories and the spin either themselves or by proxy. Basically a group of young fellas and girls going off on one with a big megaphone. There are some good people there, some very nice people-but the over riding pattern in that publication is, open borders, extreme feminism (to the point where the drug mules in Peru are almost idolised), pro Labour, misogynistic, very very Left wing etc.

Now, it's fine for any publication to be all of those. No one would deem the Mail a paragon of good taste or tolerance (even though they broke a lot of stories here that our own should have), but if they want to be a hand wringing soap box on the internet, they should say so-even in the form of editorials from themselves. What they are is a "news aggregator", unless they get one of their mates to write a column calling for more funds for whatever quango they work for, while they post articles and fail to stand over them. Gavan Reilly used to work there-he'd always come back and discuss anything he put up. Bar one lady who I have a lot of time for, and who doesn't indulge in this sort of thing, none of the others do. It is rapidly become a discredited and damaged publication.

Anyway, none of this is for here. As you'd agree.

The ultimate point being-that Distilled, in the form of the Fallons, are certainly not driving Boards, and are most likely not driving thejournal, in my humble view anyway.

Steve · 23-08-2013 12:34AM

I wish the Journal would take a look at boards the odd time in terms of moderation smarts. In fairness to them the journalism is mainly excellent - there are rare exceptions - and it's really enjoyable to read - but the comments on most articles too often descend into head-desk territory.

Pelvis Parsley · 23-08-2013 01:01AM

In terms of moderation, while they can be criticised, they do leave many critical comments up there-that's to their credit in my view-if they don't break the law, leave 'em stand. Most of the internet is not like boards. As I said above, they are less cautious about letting comments stand, because they are professional (in that they actually get paid), and they are less of them, and less of us. What's tJ running? A thousand posts a day? Not actively monitored either. How may for boards? Must be heading for a thousand mods now, and probably that amount of posts per hour at off peak times.

All that aside, any thought on the articles themselves? They are surely the most prominent feature of the site.

Callipo · 24-08-2013 12:41AM

Dav wrote: »

TheJournal's staff handle the moderation, for the most part they are professional journalists with legal training in areas of publishing law, so my guess is they're both better equipped and far more capable of identifying trouble. .

It has been said on a popular radio stations that the Journal.ie just rehashes press releases as news.

Seems legit. Looking at their "journalism"

Journalists? Really? Legal training?

nesf · 24-08-2013 01:20AM

Callipo wrote: »

It has been said on a popular radio stations that the Journal.ie just rehashes press releases as news.

Seems legit. Looking at their "journalism"

Journalists? Really? Legal training?

If you have training in a Science subject or in Economics it doesn't take long to figure out that the average article on such in a newspaper or on TV are just that, press releases rewritten. If you think modern journalism isn't peppered throughout by this you are very wrong.

DeVore · 24-08-2013 01:23AM

Cant win really...

If we followed a "party line" we'd be complained about for that. When we set our own agenda, well... we get this

This site runs on the volunteers, I think everyone should be able to hold their heads up that we made a value/judgement call and stayed away from topics like SlaneGirl etc. I'm happy with that call. I'm proud we didnt go there.

johnnyskeleton · 25-08-2013 09:26PM

Earthwalker wrote: »

In short: I would appreciate (and I'm sure others would too) an explanation on why it is that two brands of Distilled Media, can have such differing approaches to the same sensitive news stories. One allows debate on them and clearly feels capable of moderating it, while the other one (the dedicated 'discussion' forum) doesn't. I get that thejournal.ie and Boards.ie are not one in the same of course but you are two branches of the same tree at the end of the day.

The purpose of thejournal is to be a wiki type news site for freelance journalists etc. Anything they consider newsworthy is relevant to the discussion. Occasionally, people will talk about other things that aren't really news, and it is up to them to keep these non-core issues running.

The purpose of boards.ie is to share our collective fascination with a computer game called Quaker III (or something to that effect*) and everything else that is discussed on the site is, while tolerated, not part of the core shoot-em-up message.

So try not to think of boards.ie as being a free for all that occasionally forbids certain topics and think of it more as permitting a lot more than the original purpose of the site now, but occasionally drawing certain limits on the discussion as being too unconnected to the central issue.

*oh, and before anyone gives out, I know that Quaker III is just a rip off of Juke Nuclear and Wolfcastle 3D.

Two brands of Distilled Media, yet polar opposite positions on sensitive news, why?

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