Truemors
Freedom of Press. Nowpublic style
The other day I published an article on Nowpublic. The story was called Hugo Chavez and the Cowardly World.
The story focused on Honduras and the events transpiring. It was inspired by the one sided international media coverage on the subject of the removal of the President. Living in Honduras for 15 years now and having a Honduran child I have been concerned about the future of Honduras for some time. Thus the piece was written. The story was well received and within 4 hours or so I had 300 visits and 40 recommendations. My placement was #2 for front page story and here in Honduras is was the latest story in the Local news section of the front page. Discussion on the story was spirited, but manageable. There was a statement made by hidflect that amounted to a personal attack. 3 minutes later Moonwolf commented in agreement with the personal attack. My response to the personal attack was poetic in some ways but did not use profanity. It was a reaction to the comment. Two minutes after I made the comment Amy Judd posted the following statement “Ok, I'm closing down this thread - if there can't be constructive discussion then I'm afraid there won't be any discussion”. Amy’s act of closing the discussion was not a big issue. However, I noticed that my story was no longer visible as a contender for first page nor did it appear on the front page when the visit/recommendation level points became the highest of published stories within the 8 hour window. I on my rankings I did receive credit for the front page story, but on Nowpublic Front Page it was nowhere to be seen. I emailed Amy asking about the situation and she replied stating, “I'm sorry you feel that way - stories with comments of that nature will often be pulled from the front page, yours is not the first and will not be the last to have this action done to it.” I'm not going to debate this with you; I've always supported your stories and helped you, but I will not tolerate the kind of comments you made yesterday from anyone on the site. This is all I have to say about that incident - I am moving on now, I hope you can too.” This is where I have an issue. Amy Judd decided to and admittedly PULLED my story because of a comment and therefore Buried my story by removing it from the front page and removing it from local news. This, in my mind goes against some basic journalistic principles. According to Nowpublic flaming policy Amy should have contacted me and given me a chance to edit my comment so it would not be deemed offensive, but instead she closed discussion and BURIED the story. I sent various emails yesterday to editors and users and there is some consensus that this was wrong and amounts to, at minimum, the suppression of news by Nowpublic. It also indicates a bias on behalf of the editing staff in pointing out my comment as the cause of the story being PULLED. During the six months prior to the replacement of Manuel Zelaya here in Honduras I used the Nowpublic website to post articles that were to dangerous to publish on my site or in my newspaper and having this window to the world was very important when it comes to getting real stories out that mainstream/corporate media will not cover. I am very disappointed that the editors of Nowpubic seem to have the same corporate attitude when it comes to choosing what stories should and should not be visible to readers. Comments wecome. is reporting from
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at 04:38 on July 22nd, 2009
stories has only a given time limit to get to the front page. several hours, but not indefinitely.
at 04:44 on July 22nd, 2009
In reply to #1 nagba at 04:38 on July 22nd, 2009
Thanks for the comment.
As per Amy's statement she PULLED the story. This means that it could not appear in the front page and would not flow in order in Local News or normal search.
at 04:55 on July 22nd, 2009
http://my.nowpublic.com/search?fulltext=1&type=story&keys=Hugo+Chavez+Cowardly+World
however it really cant show in channels / local.
This decision is up to the content team.
at 05:16 on July 22nd, 2009
at 05:21 on July 22nd, 2009
you are overdramatizing it, Bob.
at 05:25 on July 22nd, 2009
In reply to #5 nagba at 05:21 on July 22nd, 2009
nagba,
What did Bob say? The post has been removed.
What happened?
at 05:36 on July 22nd, 2009
In reply to #3 nagba at 04:55 on July 22nd, 2009
What I am refering to is the positioning of the story. Search Honduras. You will see that my story is out of sync. The listing is no longer sorted by time posted, recommendation nor views.
The story also no longer is in the local news feed for Honduras which is time driven.
At this point, I think you can ask Jarett or Amy and they will confirm that the story was PULLED and that this changes the search access of the story.
Best,
UEW
at 05:53 on July 22nd, 2009
yes, as i have mentioned it was pulled out of channels / local news. It is still present in search and on the tag page http://my.nowpublic.com/tag/Honduras/news . What search is producing with the search is a bit weird, but it should have nothing to do with the "pull".
at 05:59 on July 22nd, 2009
In reply to #8 nagba at 05:53 on July 22nd, 2009
This is the point. The pulling of the story amounted to supression of the news.
I agree that the search issue is weird, but this is caused from the PULLING of the story.
Thank you very much for responding.
at 06:07 on July 22nd, 2009
the search and the pulling is not related as far as i can see. I have other task to do atm that to dig down on this search anomaly one.
at 07:58 on July 22nd, 2009
There are a few issues here at the same time and I think to many at once to be able to discuss this reasonably.
I can see why you are upset and I reply here because of your PM and this Forum Post that has some merit since it does raise a few issues that could be improved here on this site to avoid further problems of this nature and by that I mean the Comments getting out of hand and causing a post to be killed.
The Post should not suffer from those nor be penalized here. I know that some commentators and this mostly Anon, however not in this particular case can kill a post, no matter how good or relevant or not that post may be.
This being said, I do understand that you are upset and I can simpathise with you on this issue.
Nevertheless, I do support Amy here and I know she did her job and did it with the best of intention for all members involved and for NP.
You may not agree with it and I can understand why, still your post was on the front page for a time, wish is good. The Comment caused it to be polled wish is frustrating.
Yet, if you look at the numbers of views there are at 446 wish is not bad at all for a post here at NP. Only few make it over the 1000 viewed. And this is what counts, the number of people reading your post, the points and "R" matter little if you have only 100 people that read your post.
Amy is not the problem she did what has been done many times here, even with some of my own postings due to comments.
What is important now is no longer the post it self, since that is in the past and can not be changed.
However, the question would be, what needs to change or be done for this not to happen again? Can we change any thing with out causing another problem some where else?
...
at 10:01 on July 22nd, 2009
In reply to #11 Paschen at 07:58 on July 22nd, 2009
Thank you for your comments Paschen.
I agree that the views on the story were at a good level and there are still new visits coming now. I have linked the story from different sites and this is helping the visability.
The problem is that through PULLING the story, Nowpublic readers will have difficulty finding the story and this I see as suppression of the media.
This is a life and death issue for a lot of people and I feel that by PULLING the story the editorial staff are doing something much more than affecting my view count.There is an analogy I would like to make regarding the current situation in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Honduras and this current issue with Nowpublic staff.
Imagine the Nowpublic Community as Honduras. There are readers who represent the population, writers who could be considered the Congress and there are editors, these are the Judicial Branch.My story was PULLED by the editors or Supreme Court of Nowpublic much like Manuel Zelaya was removed from power. No trial, no dialogue and without warning. The Court deemed, “she did her job and did it with the best of intention for all members.”
I, playing the role of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, protest the actions of my removal and start a campaign, contacting the population asking for the decision to be reversed. Members of the population, sympathetic to my cause, contact Congress and Court, asking for my reinstatement.
However, after deliberation the Supreme Court rules that the issue is “in the past and can not be changed”.Right or wrong, the Supreme Court has the exclusive right to determine my fate and I must accept it.
There is more aspect to this analogy that I would like to add. It involves the actions of external forces.Does someone powerful influence the Editorial staff of Nowpublic? Was I intentionally pushed to react to a derogatory statement which enabled this Barbaric and quick action to be taken? Who really wears the face of Charles Manson? What influence does Moonwolf have over the Editorial Staff?
Unfortunately, it does not matter.Nowpublic is its own Sovereign entity and if I am to live within the Community I must respect the rules and judgments made by the Editorial staff.
Personally, I think a fair resolution to this issue be that my story is reinstated with full rights to comment and full visibility on Nowpublic, just like Manuel Zelaya would like to be reinstated as president of Honduras.However, in both cases, it just does not matter.
Respect to all.at 10:26 on July 22nd, 2009
In reply to #12 utilaeastwind at 10:01 on July 22nd, 2009
at 15:32 on July 22nd, 2009
Thanks for taking this discussion to the forum.
This move was in no way personal to you or to what is happening in Honduras, but you have made it very personal towards me.
I was doing my job, which is to keep the integrity of the site, and is to often make decisions that are hard, but are necessary; this was one of those decisions. If I was given the opportunity to go back in time, I would do the exact same thing.
As stated in our Terms of Service:
NowPublic reserves the right to change any aspect of the Site or the Services including the right to refuse or remove any content, whatever the source, at any time without any notice or liability to You.
So yes, even though this practice is not enacted on a regular basis, we sometimes do follow these guidelines.
Your story was not unpublished, it can still be found on the site even now. It has full visibility.
I'm sorry this has caused you so much distress, but as the Community Manager I made my decision and I stand by it. The best way to avoid these situations in the future is to alert staff when you feel you have been wronged by other members and we will deal with it as soon as we can.
at 09:50 on July 23rd, 2009
In reply to #14 amyjudd at 15:32 on July 22nd, 2009
Amy I'm curious about this situation as it seems it is similar to when I first started posting here when you warned me that I was going over the line. I took your advice and backed off and that was that. So I guess my question here is, why was this disscusion stopped with no warning?
at 12:38 on July 24th, 2009
Well, different situations call for different ways of dealing with them; that's the only way I know how to answer that question.
Quote from #15: Concerned Resident of Honduras at 09:50 on July 23rd, 2009
at 07:59 on August 7th, 2009
Quote from #12: utilaeastwind at 10:01 on July 22nd, 2009
What you should of done was a follow up story and linked it to the first one. I feel that the owner of the article when it comes to flames should take presidential place in a judgment that those flaming should have their comments removed. Why is there not a report option as such as Newsvine has?
However I agree with Paschen. you have had fair play and what was done has been the standard procedure.