Thursday, December 07, 2006

The Yonk gets blocked


The Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader sometimes invites comments on their stories. If the story is of interest to me I usually read them since I'm always interested what the locals are thinking. Some of the comments are very funny, occassionally outrageous and sometimes "politcally incorrect." The TL policy about posting comments has the usual prohibitions about hate speech, obscenities, etc. So I was surprised to read that local blogger David Yonki of The Lu Lac Political Letter was censored as the Yonkster is always a well spoken gentleman. He reports that he posted a comment about the Judge Lokuta controversy citing his blog and this one that was wasn't posted:

The Times Leader ran a story on Sunday about Judge Ann Lokuta. After it, they asked for comments. I posted one, leaving my full name as well as my blog address as well as that of Gort 42 ( http://gort42.blogspot.com/ ) since we both did stories on the Judge’s plight. But the Leader chose not to post my thoughts, perhaps they were threatened by more substantial facts and stories that appear on all local blogs.

What's up with that? It could of been a technical problem but I doubt it. The TL often provides links to local websites in the print and online editions such as the story I highlighted about the Catholic Schools or the Heights fire station bruhaha. I know that reporters on both W-B papers read this blog and other local sites. Maybe they need to amend the terms of service to read that you can't link to bloggers in the comments. Blogs and newspapers are learning how to live with each other. The big blogs react to what is in in the NY Times or Washington Post as we comment on what is in the Times-Leader. Newspapers are not going away as many think but they will change and dealing with the blogosphere is part of the evolution.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, the T-L has gotten worse over the years, not better. They are not so much a newspaper as an advertising delivery device.