Friday, January 25, 2008

Oh ADN, why? Just why?

So being a good Alaskan I feed in the Anchorage Daily News into my iGoogle page but am extremely embarrassed about the way the online content is being handled by the paper.
Case in point.
A story about a robbery suspect who got chased down by some local do-gooders. Fine, no problem, a little hokie maybe but come on its Anchorage. I am on board up until the point where I scroll past the article and see the comments that people are leaving.
Now there is a chance that this is the "Ziggy" that worked as a carpenter on my mother-in-law's house, so no disrespect intended here but are we really at a point where our news outlets have to allow this type of commenting (oh, and I love the fact that I may actually know the guy named Ziggy mentioned in the article, Jesus)?

"Thank you to those involved that were willing to eliminate one more criminal in town."
- Eliminated? Was he "terminated"?

"I'm a lawyer: I'm going to sue you vigilantes for violating the civil rights of Mr. Douglas. We can't have lynch mobs running our society. All citizens have rights, etc. etc. etc."
- Lawyer dig? OK, but wait, don't citizens have rights? Sarcastic, ironic? I'm not sure.

"Good job you guys! Keys to the city are yours! If I was mayor, you'd already have them! Kudos!!!"
- If you were mayor I would be more embarrassed.

This one is actually pretty good:
"Just wanted to thank "Ziggy" Zeigler for being a great Alaskan!"
- Footnote: Anyone named Ziggy is actually considered a great Alaskan by default.

The real question is, why are people compelled so greatly to post inane garbage online? Wait, what? Nevermind.

6 comments:

robert said...

Ziggy is just who you think he is. The unpleasant part is that he is a year younger than me, and still able to run down criminals. He's also letting his freak flag fly. To the extent possible.
You just have to understand that not everyone who writes a blog, or who has a "comments" posting option, can have purely intellectual readers who post meaningful comments-- like you.
Just be thankful that ADN didn't conflate the previous "Matthew Lewis" story with the Ziggy story, and have Ziggy knifed by someone with a similar name. Then you would be needing a lawyer. I'm surprised that the comments didn't include links to the vigilantism websites: They tend to have an affinity for the phrase "let's roll." It's not just a little irritating.
Since you're in S.F., you don't see the local teevee commercials, which now feature the Ballot/Collins household on behalf of the Conoco/Phillips gas line proposal. It is one good looking family.

Kia said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Matthew Lewis said...

Two more noteworthy comments:

"bet none of you were liberals !!! or you would have stood there watching !!! or chanting about his poor upbringing !!!"

"If we all carried guns people would not try to rob us"

I guess my point is not that I have better comments than the ADN (although this is true), but rather that the ADN if it wants to be considered a legitimate news outlet should not allow knuckleheaded comments.

robert said...

Unfortunately, I think that is the point of the comments sections: anyone is allowed to be a complete idiot, and no one can do anything about it, if you want to have an open forum. Note that in YOUR blog, someone has reconsidered their comments, and deleted an inappropriate remark. This is self-policing. Not something that is going to happen at ADN. Nor something that really ADN wants to address. They're having enough trouble keeping readership as it is. They'd rather have a knucklehead than not. Which reminds me: Is there a grading system that you can put on your blog?
This comment is: a.) chuckleheaded; b.) dimwitted; c.) within the realm of reason; d.) ill-conceived. I think you'd get greater readership if you had an interactive "comment-on-the-comment" section.

Jason said...

I don't know if Ziggy is a carpenter but he does work in a shop on 4th...might even own it...he has a show on around 2 am that consists of him and a hand held digital video camera...he tapes all the retarded things that go on downtown in the middle of the night..."Ziggy Vision" good times...man I love 4th ave!

http://www.ziggyvision.blogspot.com/

Matthew Lewis said...

Holy crap, that blog is awesome.