McClatchy N&O editor threatens to remove Duke lacrosse comments

The McClatchy Company's Raleigh N&O's executive editor for news, Melanie Sill, is threatening to remove from The Editor's Blog, which she operates on McClatchy's behalf, comments about The N&O's Duke lacrosse coverage another reader and I made there.

Please visit Sill's post and the thread where she makes the threats.

Judge for yourself.

Sill has removed readers' comments before. For example, last Aug. 9 and 10 when many readers questioned the factualness of statements she made concerning The N&O's failure to report the loan scandal then engulfing liberal talk radio's Air America, an entire comment thread with about 30 comments was removed.

It took considerable reader protests, including attorneys reminding Sill of First Amendment rights, to get the readers' comments put back.

Please read Sill's Aug 9 post and reader comments and then go on and read her Aug 10 post and readers reactions to that. Be sure to note the many readers who spent their own time and money to do Lexus and other searches in order to confront Sill with data directly refuting a series of statements she made to readers.

I posted at the time and have repeated since that Sill's statements were false.

Since then I've invited editors with The N&O and other newspapers to look at what Sill and the readers said, and than make a statement.

I've offered to publish in full at JinC what the editor(s) say after seeing what Sill and the readers said. My only condition is that the editor is "on the record" and identified by name and affiliation.

So far no takers on that offer, but plenty of journalists have been willing to say off the record Sill's statements were false.

Take a look and see what you think.

Below is a copy of a comment I just left at The Editor's Blog. It's here FYI and in case Sill removes it at her blog.
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Comment from: John [Visitor] · http://www.johnincarolina.com
04/24/06 at 11:08
Melanie,

“(F)ar off point?”

A reader comments and I responded to her and you.

I urged you to answer her questions and those of other readers concerning The N&O’s “coverage” of the Duke lacrosse story.

You respond now by telling her and me you’ll delete any further comments like ours.

This thread’s post is titled, “What’s a blog?”

Melanie, do you have any sense of irony?

Please make available to us the standards McClatchy uses to delete reader comments.

Will this comment be deleted if I ask when you plan to answer reader questions at “Getting it right?” They’ve been piling up for days.

As commenters here Joan and I have some First Amendment rights. Please tell us your understanding of those rights.

Finally, in your discussion of what’s a blog, do you plan to tell us the difference between a blog and those internet sites that call themselves blogs, but are really PR operations that operate like the infomercials we see on TV.

Thank you.

John
www.johnincarolina.com