I was just on the NBC5 website because I wanted to post about a story they ran this morning. I skimmed the story before linking to it and then opened the comments section. That’s where I got totally sidetracked. The comments on NBC5’s web page are completely out of control and incredibly offensive even to someone like me who isn’t easily offended. I believe, and I think most of us here at the Advocate/ Back Talk concur, that the host is ultimately responsible for the content on their site, whether it’s staff or user generated. We probably lose some content/ commentary here by closely monitoring comments and making sure they aren’t offensive, threatening or too off topic — but then we mostly end up with higher quality, more intelligent reader generated discussion (not that we don’t our fair share of hurtful or dumb comments too). I understand NBC has a lot of site traffic, but they must have a staffer or intern available to chaperone the comments section. Point is, NBC5 needs to take more accountability and get the crazy story comments under control before I ever again link to one of their articles.
