Wednesday's story about charges being brought against a rural Juda woman in an animal neglect case has caused a number of readers to comment here on the Web.
Some of the comments have been suitable for publication on the site, some have not.
I won't go into a detailed explanation of which kinds of comments are allowed and which kinds are not. I'll leave that for another day.
But I thought it'd be helpful to explain that reader comments never are edited online. They either are posted exactly as they are submitted, or not at all. So even if a user writes a 300-word comment, and only one of them is unusable, all 300 words get tossed.
This is done for legal reasons. Once a news organization begins editing its user content online, it then becomes more legally accountable for it.
Regarding the dog neglect story, a number of people have commented that the details included made them sick - figuratively, I assume, but perhaps literally in some cases, as well. What I expected, but have not heard, are questions about why we printed such extensive details.
The short answer would be that we certainly didn't print all of the details of the scene that were included in the court filing. There were some that simply were too graphic to put in print. But we also made an effort to make sure that the severity and extent of the neglectful conditions the dogs were living in was conveyed by the details published in the newspaper. And judging from the responses we've received, I think we were successful.
Finally, it has been heartening to see some of the actions this story has created. Juda school students had a bake sale last weekend to raise funds for the Green County Humane Society, whose crowded shelter was overburdened with the receipt of the 20 dogs rescued from animal neglect. In today's paper, we have a story about Monroe Middle School students volunteering to do work at the shelter. And soon, possibly Saturday, we hope to have a story of a local donations challenge to assist the humane society.
Sometimes, the worst stories bring out the best in people.
Some of the comments have been suitable for publication on the site, some have not.
I won't go into a detailed explanation of which kinds of comments are allowed and which kinds are not. I'll leave that for another day.
But I thought it'd be helpful to explain that reader comments never are edited online. They either are posted exactly as they are submitted, or not at all. So even if a user writes a 300-word comment, and only one of them is unusable, all 300 words get tossed.
This is done for legal reasons. Once a news organization begins editing its user content online, it then becomes more legally accountable for it.
Regarding the dog neglect story, a number of people have commented that the details included made them sick - figuratively, I assume, but perhaps literally in some cases, as well. What I expected, but have not heard, are questions about why we printed such extensive details.
The short answer would be that we certainly didn't print all of the details of the scene that were included in the court filing. There were some that simply were too graphic to put in print. But we also made an effort to make sure that the severity and extent of the neglectful conditions the dogs were living in was conveyed by the details published in the newspaper. And judging from the responses we've received, I think we were successful.
Finally, it has been heartening to see some of the actions this story has created. Juda school students had a bake sale last weekend to raise funds for the Green County Humane Society, whose crowded shelter was overburdened with the receipt of the 20 dogs rescued from animal neglect. In today's paper, we have a story about Monroe Middle School students volunteering to do work at the shelter. And soon, possibly Saturday, we hope to have a story of a local donations challenge to assist the humane society.
Sometimes, the worst stories bring out the best in people.
