My colleague Jacqui White in our Interactive Solutions unit pointed out that the BBC moderation of the story on the Virginia shootings had still to process nearly 9,000 comments. As you can see from the box on the right of this story, 2,568 comments have been moderated and published and 212 rejected. The BBC is surely right on this kind of story to moderate (one can only begin to imagine the contents of some of those rejected comments) but with the massive interest and the need many people feel to express sympathy in this way it also presents them with a real people bandwidth challenge.
[tags] BBC, Moderation [/tags]
sixtysecondview.blog 
What I find most interesting about this is the BBC’s attempts at UGC still remain trapped in a traditional media perspective. I can understand its need for moderation, however this results in the channelling and filtering of content rather than the unadulterated content available direct from witnesses and those on the ground in Blacksburg.
This itself raises another issue: after news of the shooting broke the BBC requested people to send in their own content. But as publishing gets ever easier why do people need to rely on a mainstream media outlet to get their content out to the world?
LikeLike
I fully support the BBC’s decision in this instance.
Overseeing the BBC Radio Five Live message boards in the hours and days after September 11, I did exectly the same thing.
By doing so, we managed to prevent a significant minority of posters from using the BBC as a vehicle to promote extreme views designed solely to whip up ethnic and religious hatred rather than to help further a considered conversation.
LikeLike
Good points. On the second I guess they might respond that whilst you and I are happy publishing to our blogs, not everyone has one. Also, not everyone I guess knows how to use search and find the stories and blogs tagged with this subject. I still think that people go to the established “meeting places” and brands on these ocassions. Also, some of those people really are nutters. If you have ever worked in a newsroom or news-organisation at this sort of time you will have come across them and I susepct they will target people like the BBC with their views.
LikeLike