Modul Mata Kuliah Journalisme Online - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY

form (an actual quote or a similar link), then I would say you do need some balance. Again, context
is key.
Should we allow readers to post links in comment areas, blogs provided to readers by the site, live
discussions, etc.?
Brew: Yes, it's a crucial part of the debate. To allow a Web debate but then forbid participants from
citing the Web seems weird. If someone abuses such a policy (or any policy), delete him/her.
Deggans: Yes, because anything that gives users the ability to help make media on your site will
probably attract users. That does mean a moderator or someone will have to check the links to
make sure they don't refer people to porn sites or something. You can also encourage users to
police themselves by reporting broken or troublesome links to you.
Cox: Do you mean actual hyperlinks? In that case, I would not recommend allowing commenters to
post links. The same code used to display a hyperlink can be used to display audio, video or images.
My experience is that allowing commenters to place links into a site is an invitation to finding vile,
outrageous images and video on your site.
If you mean text indicating how to get to a particular page, I am not sure how you are going to stop
that. If readers can comment, they can describe a URL. I think you just address this under "terms
and conditions." You treat the Web page they have "linked" as if the commenters wrote it
themselves.
What I do know from personal experience is that there are two kinds of Web sites: those that have
been infested with vile, foul-mouthed, disgusting trolls and those that will be. If you don't address
this up front, you are guaranteed to have a problem.
I was on a panel this week at RTNDA. A woman from Pappas Telecasting was there talking about
how they have never had a problem with their users uploading problematic content to any of their
television stations' Web sites. I just had to laugh when she said it. Talk about naive. What worries
me about things like that goes back to what happened at Tribune. After their wiki debacle, they did
not just take down the Los Angeles Times wiki but "froze" all citizen journalism initiatives at all of
their newspapers and TV stations. That has since been lifted, but just shows that the real risk here,
from my perspective with the Media Bloggers Association, is that big media outlets will try blogging
and CJ, not put in proper safeguards, have it blow up in their faces and give up, saying, "Well, we
tried that and it did not work."
Do we tell posters they must provide an explanation or description of material linked to as warning to
other users?
Donosky: I think we can ask users to characterize the material they are linking to as a warning. In
restrospect, I probably should not have made the decision recently to take down a link a commenter
posted of an Iraqi with his head blown apart. The photo was germane to the discussion about the war,
and the commenter warned it was a "graphic photo."