Fraser Valley/Toronto (with files from Brodie Fenlon · CBC News) – Journalists, no matter if they are print or electronic, are under constant attack in this day and age of keyboard warriors on social media.
Interaction with consumers/readers/viewers is essential. But there are many who feel it is fair game to make threats and insults and call that fair comment.
The president of CBC/Radio-Canada, Catherine Tait, has written about the increased abuse of journalists on social media, especially women and journalists of colour, and the threat such attacks pose to free speech and democracy.
CBC will try an experiment. For the next month, CBC will close comments on all news links and video posts to the Facebook pages belonging to the journalism division of the CBC (News, Current Affairs and Local). (This would not apply to variety programs)
FVN and chillTV ask, should we follow suit? Yes, our inboxes fill overnight with some rather nasty comments. For the most part, comments are fair and many ask for more information.
BUT, the abuse is constant… and sometimes ( in FVN’s case) we have had to inform authorities about the more disturbing posts.
So we ask you — Should FVN and chillTV CLOSE Social Media comments to our stories. Or.. at the very least, Facebook comments?
Would that serve the purpose of conveying the message that those posts are out of line.. or does that merely contribute to censorship on our part?
Ironically, please comment at the bottom of this post.
