That editorial
Today's editorial in the Patriot-News launches an unfortunate attack on local bloggers (including, by implication, this one) for supposedly publishing racist and hateful comments about Mayor Linda Thompson.
But one of the two comments attributed to blogs in the editorial--"Harrisburg is no longer a city! It is now Slumbville!! Gang Wars and Mass Killings Drive By's are on the rise!. The Dawgs are out in full force. Move out now!!! Perry County here we come"--was actually published in the PennLive Forum section on Nov. 4, 2009. I couldn't find the other one, "Where does she get her hair done, PetSmart?" via Google, but suspect it was also from PennLive.
PennLive is owned by the same people who own the Patriot-News. Think of them as different pockets in the same suit. The newspaper editors do not have complete control over the website--a source of great frustration to the staff when stories they wrote for the print edition inexplicably fail to appear on PennLive. Editors can have Forum comments removed if someone complains, but don't really want to do so, for legal reasons. We were always told that an unedited comments section has more legal protection than an edited one. Go figure, but it's apparently true.
The Patriot-News could eliminate a lot of the racial garbage by ending anonymous posting. Anonymous letters-to-the-editor aren't allowed. Why should Forum posts be? As for comments on my blog, I regretfully get very few of them. I allow nearly all to be published, but read each one before I do and weed out ones that are illogical or offensive. As with New York Times letters-to-the-editor, you have to make your case, or at least have an interesting opinion. I have allowed anonymous posts, but since I don't allow cheap shots, it is not a critical issue.
What I gather from some of the comments posted on PennLive is yes, there are still racists in America. But I also see that robust political dialogue is alive and well in America. Most of the criticism of Thompson--and all of it in this blog--has been based on facts and observations, not stereotypes.
One would need a psychiatrist and a couch to get to the deepest motivations of the person who wrote that editorial, but I suspect part of it stems from frustration by the newspaper that it is no longer in control of the news agenda in Harrisburg. The Patriot-News tried to portray Thompson sort of as Martin Luther King set upon by Bull Connor and his police dogs, but bloggers and the public weren't buying that. They saw a deeply flawed and divisive candidate with a taste for the high life, questionable personal finances, and a fundamentalist religious fervor that led her to believe she had been called by God to save Harrisburg.
Bloggers, including this one, wrote about the facts and contradictions in Thompson's record, treating her as they would any other serious candidate, and the newspaper, reluctantly it seemed, followed in our wake (at least until five days before the election, when coverage in the newspaper mysteriously ceased). Thompson received the votes of about 12 percent of registered voters in the city, but that was enough when the vast majority of voters stayed home.
Like I said in a previous post, we're stuck with her now, and those of us who own property in Harrisburg (and aren't leaving, like the Patriot-News), have a stake in her success in dealing with the city's monumental problems. Both Linda Thompson in her former role as city council president and former Mayor Stephen R. Reed had a hand in creating those problems. Let's hope someone can find a solution. In the meantime, I don't plan to cease my coverage.