Articles of a Political Nature - What I Think and What I Tell Others
Chronicle Staff
March 20, 2008
My name is Greg and I am a reviewer of articles on the Chronicle family of online news magazines. Here is what I think about political articles:
When I review articles, I frequently delay the approval of some political articles, or I delete them altogether if they are even moderately nasty. If you suspect your article will come close to violating our editorial policy, then do not submit the article to our site because we do not want to publish your article. Every author on our website agreed to honor our policy when they requested an account.
IMPORTANT: We believe that people who write political articles are often more despicable, dishonest, and repugnant than the public servants they write about.
You should know that if we had to decide between publishing an article about "Why Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes skipped the Oscars for NASCAR" vs. an article about anything political, we would rather publish the article about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes for the following reasons:
1. The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes article would not likely violate our policy. The contributors who violate our policy are almost entirely and exclusively political writers; almost nobody who writes articles on any other topic violates our policy.
2. The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes articles would likely contribute more to the improvement of society and world peace.
3. The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes article would get more views and, thus, generate more traffic on our site.
4. The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes article would not generate complaints to which we would need to respond. Complaints about policy violations consume the valuable time of our high school student interns.
Other items of interest:
5. We prefer articles on topics other than politics. These topics include: sports, gardening, travel, food, music, art, business, industry, medicine, education, technology, autos, books, health and fitness, investing, jobs, fashion, lifestyle, movies, finance, pets, real estate, and science. Articles on these topics get us more traffic on our website, contribute more meaningfully to society, and do not generate complaints. So articles on these topics are preferable to articles about politics.
6. We donīt mind deleting or delaying political articles that might come remotely close to violating our policy because it is very easy for someone NOT to violate our policy. The author need only write about issues and NOT about people. Articles about issues, which avoid the naming of individuals in the body of the article, are almost always published.
7. We donīt care if you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent. Donīt violate our policy. If you suspect (or are told) that we are approving one type of article over another type of article, you are wrong. We take no sides politically and the individuals reviewing articles are of varying political persuasions. If you do not believe this statement, then do not patronize our website.
8. We are not a free-speech site. We never were a free-speech site. And we never will be a free-speech site. People who want to submit caustic and vitriolic articles about politicians can post their nasty and repugnant articles on any of the other tens of thousands of free-speech sites on the Internet that allow caustic and vitriolic articles. We are not one of them.
9. People who did not read, notice, or take our policy seriously when they requested an account, and who are now unhappy about the policy, may decide to do one of two things: (a) they can live with, and abide by, our policy, or (b) they can ask us to close their account and delete all of their articles. We do not mind deleting articles from our site because when an article is deleted it is replaced by a "Page Not Found" message with links to other websites in our network, providing us with traffic we would not otherwise receive. So we really do not care one way or the other if an article is deleted. We do care, however, if an article violates our policy.
10. We approve 99% of the articles that are submitted to our site because nasty political writers self-select out of the author pool when they read our policy. This is good. Consequently, most authors on our site do not violate our policy. However, if an author does violates our policy, we just delete the article and will close the account for repeat violations. And we donīt feel bad about not giving an author the courtesy of providing a reason why an article was deleted or an account closed. Why should we? After all, the author did not provide us with the courtesy of following the policy that s/he agreed to follow when requesting an account. We actually hope these people will eventually wither away because we don't want them on our site. In the meantime, we are happy to benefit from the traffic their "not-so-nasty" articles generate for us.
11. Yes, some articles that violate our policy get by us when they should never have been approved. These are articles of all political persuasions. We have over 100,000 articles on the site and over 3,000 contributors. If you want to peruse our website for the purpose of identifying all of the articles that may violate our policy and send us the links along with an explanation of why the articles may violate our policy, you are welcome to do this. We will not pay you for this information and we may ultimately disagree with you. We know that there are articles from every political persuasion on our site that may potentially have a policy violation. We do our best to keep these articles off our website but sometimes things get by us. If you are unhappy about the fact that we sometimes make mistakes, then do not patronize our website. One of the reasons a caustic article may get by us during the review process is because we noticed another article in queue about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. So we were anxious to get to that more interesting and worthwhile article quickly. Our bad.
12. We do not use an objective scoring rubric to determine if an article comes close to violating our policy. We use a subjective approach to determine if an article comes close to violating our policy. If you are unhappy with our approach, then do not patronize our website. If you want to argue with us about why Article X was approved and why Article Y was not approved, we will not engage you in that discussion. Thatīs because we are too busy reviewing other articles that are not of a political nature and which take up far less of our time. Hopefully, they are articles about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
13. We are not desperate for articles and we are not desperate for authors. If you want to write an article about a political issue that does not come close to violating our policy then we are happy to provide you with a legitimate and reputable place on the Internet for you to share your views.
14. Anybody who doesnīt like our policy or the way we enforce our policy can choose not to patronize our website. We are not a free-speech website, and we will never be a free-speech website. Even if we were a free-speech website (which we are not), the U.S. Constitution provides limitations on free-speech. There are tens of thousands of free-speech websites on the Internet that allow caustic and vitriolic articles about politicians. We are not one of them.
15. If you want to disparage or denigrate us for having a strict policy that is subjective and perceivably unfair then, by all means, please go ahead and ridicule us on other websites, in blogs, in articles on free-speech websites, in emails, at your next cocktail party, or on the walls of gas station restrooms. When you disparage us, please include the name of our website and the link to our home page.
When I review articles, I frequently delay the approval of some political articles, or I delete them altogether if they are even moderately nasty. If you suspect your article will come close to violating our editorial policy, then do not submit the article to our site because we do not want to publish your article. Every author on our website agreed to honor our policy when they requested an account.
IMPORTANT: We believe that people who write political articles are often more despicable, dishonest, and repugnant than the public servants they write about.
You should know that if we had to decide between publishing an article about "Why Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes skipped the Oscars for NASCAR" vs. an article about anything political, we would rather publish the article about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes for the following reasons:
1. The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes article would not likely violate our policy. The contributors who violate our policy are almost entirely and exclusively political writers; almost nobody who writes articles on any other topic violates our policy.
2. The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes articles would likely contribute more to the improvement of society and world peace.
3. The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes article would get more views and, thus, generate more traffic on our site.
4. The Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes article would not generate complaints to which we would need to respond. Complaints about policy violations consume the valuable time of our high school student interns.
Other items of interest:
5. We prefer articles on topics other than politics. These topics include: sports, gardening, travel, food, music, art, business, industry, medicine, education, technology, autos, books, health and fitness, investing, jobs, fashion, lifestyle, movies, finance, pets, real estate, and science. Articles on these topics get us more traffic on our website, contribute more meaningfully to society, and do not generate complaints. So articles on these topics are preferable to articles about politics.
6. We donīt mind deleting or delaying political articles that might come remotely close to violating our policy because it is very easy for someone NOT to violate our policy. The author need only write about issues and NOT about people. Articles about issues, which avoid the naming of individuals in the body of the article, are almost always published.
7. We donīt care if you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent. Donīt violate our policy. If you suspect (or are told) that we are approving one type of article over another type of article, you are wrong. We take no sides politically and the individuals reviewing articles are of varying political persuasions. If you do not believe this statement, then do not patronize our website.
8. We are not a free-speech site. We never were a free-speech site. And we never will be a free-speech site. People who want to submit caustic and vitriolic articles about politicians can post their nasty and repugnant articles on any of the other tens of thousands of free-speech sites on the Internet that allow caustic and vitriolic articles. We are not one of them.
9. People who did not read, notice, or take our policy seriously when they requested an account, and who are now unhappy about the policy, may decide to do one of two things: (a) they can live with, and abide by, our policy, or (b) they can ask us to close their account and delete all of their articles. We do not mind deleting articles from our site because when an article is deleted it is replaced by a "Page Not Found" message with links to other websites in our network, providing us with traffic we would not otherwise receive. So we really do not care one way or the other if an article is deleted. We do care, however, if an article violates our policy.
10. We approve 99% of the articles that are submitted to our site because nasty political writers self-select out of the author pool when they read our policy. This is good. Consequently, most authors on our site do not violate our policy. However, if an author does violates our policy, we just delete the article and will close the account for repeat violations. And we donīt feel bad about not giving an author the courtesy of providing a reason why an article was deleted or an account closed. Why should we? After all, the author did not provide us with the courtesy of following the policy that s/he agreed to follow when requesting an account. We actually hope these people will eventually wither away because we don't want them on our site. In the meantime, we are happy to benefit from the traffic their "not-so-nasty" articles generate for us.
11. Yes, some articles that violate our policy get by us when they should never have been approved. These are articles of all political persuasions. We have over 100,000 articles on the site and over 3,000 contributors. If you want to peruse our website for the purpose of identifying all of the articles that may violate our policy and send us the links along with an explanation of why the articles may violate our policy, you are welcome to do this. We will not pay you for this information and we may ultimately disagree with you. We know that there are articles from every political persuasion on our site that may potentially have a policy violation. We do our best to keep these articles off our website but sometimes things get by us. If you are unhappy about the fact that we sometimes make mistakes, then do not patronize our website. One of the reasons a caustic article may get by us during the review process is because we noticed another article in queue about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. So we were anxious to get to that more interesting and worthwhile article quickly. Our bad.
12. We do not use an objective scoring rubric to determine if an article comes close to violating our policy. We use a subjective approach to determine if an article comes close to violating our policy. If you are unhappy with our approach, then do not patronize our website. If you want to argue with us about why Article X was approved and why Article Y was not approved, we will not engage you in that discussion. Thatīs because we are too busy reviewing other articles that are not of a political nature and which take up far less of our time. Hopefully, they are articles about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
13. We are not desperate for articles and we are not desperate for authors. If you want to write an article about a political issue that does not come close to violating our policy then we are happy to provide you with a legitimate and reputable place on the Internet for you to share your views.
14. Anybody who doesnīt like our policy or the way we enforce our policy can choose not to patronize our website. We are not a free-speech website, and we will never be a free-speech website. Even if we were a free-speech website (which we are not), the U.S. Constitution provides limitations on free-speech. There are tens of thousands of free-speech websites on the Internet that allow caustic and vitriolic articles about politicians. We are not one of them.
15. If you want to disparage or denigrate us for having a strict policy that is subjective and perceivably unfair then, by all means, please go ahead and ridicule us on other websites, in blogs, in articles on free-speech websites, in emails, at your next cocktail party, or on the walls of gas station restrooms. When you disparage us, please include the name of our website and the link to our home page.
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