re Topix, Sun-Sentinel's reader comments site; Venture Beat: Online news gatherer Topix aims for election-ad dollars

Some of you are already quite familiar with the downside of using the Topix reader comment boards affiliated with newspaper websites.

If you're in South Florida like me, it's pretty likely you're familiar with it from having seen the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's, where scurrilous, hateful and racist comments were/are routinely posted there just for the hell of it, and people could literally post things things there that were/are NOT factually true, with no fear of it being deleted, despite what the newspaper lamely claims.

Want to accuse someone you don't even know of being drunk at 9 a.m. and causing a traffic accident? Welcome aboard!
This is from today about the Channel 10 news van accident in Fort Lauderdale:
3 hurt in accident involving WPLG Ch. 10 live truck in Fort Lauderdale
http://discussions.sun-sentinel.com/20/soflanews/fl-van-overturn-20101015/10

I saw things there repeatedly about someone I knew that were NOT at all true, but it hardly mattered that it wasn't true, because there it stayed, day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month.
(For the record, it was from West Hollywood Dissident.)

If you wanted to publicly say that your ex-girlfriend/ex-husband or ex-roommate was a vampire, a deadbeat, a drug user, a fleeing felon or a Justin Bieber-lover, that was the place for you to vent your wrath!
And it shows!

Well, this Oct. 13th article from Venture Beat informs us about the TOPIX geniuses' newest strategy to get more political advertising $$$.

But fortunately, some smart readers chime-in and share even more personal horror stories and ruin the TOPIX party.
Sweet!

I found the article today after I received an email in my inbox from Topix this morning telling me -deceptively- implying that someone had a new message, presumably responding to something I'd written at some point in the past.

That seemed odd, since I haven't used it in a while since their site was such a mess.

Such a mess, in fact, that I'd written an email to the Sun-Sentinel's management many, many weeks ago.
Official response? ZERO!

Way to be accountable, legacy media!

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Hi Hallandale Beach Blog,

CitizenTopix sent you a message on Topix.

To see the message, click this link:
(I deleted this for obvious reason to post it here on the blog.)

Topix

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But rather than seeing a link I'd click to see the new comment -and my own original comment, since they didn't say what the subject was- as with the DISQUS comment system, http://disqus.com/, which I use when commenting on material at TheWrap and the various mediabsitro.com industry websites, it was essentially a sales pitch from TOPIX's new effort, Citizen TOPIX.

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CitizenTopix

“Sounding off for the citizens”

A Governor, Sheriff, and Dog Catcher walk into a bar...

Topix Election 2010: Citizen Sound-Off is the place to discuss the November 2nd Midterm elections that matter to you. From big-name governor races all the way down to hotly contested county commissioner seats, you can share and debate your opinions with folks from down the street or across the state.

Get started right now: http://www.topix.com/pr/election2010

Are we missing a race for your town? We could use your local expertise!
Just head over to this form and fill in the blanks:
http://bit.ly/topixelections

Vote early. Comment often.

See you at the polls!

Citizen Topix

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As you might imagine, they were NOT persuasive.

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Venture Beat

Online news gatherer Topix aims for election-ad dollars

October 13, 2010 Riley McDermid

With its launch of Election 2010: Citizen Sound-Off today, online news aggregator Topix is now the only website to couple localized voter information with a platform for open participation. But can it channel this big election into even bigger ad dollars?

Read the rest of the post at:
http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/13/online-news-gatherer-topix-aims-for-election-ad-dollars/

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See also:

"Entertainment Industry Analysis, Breaking Hollywood News" in TheWrap http://www.thewrap.com/

http://www.mediabistro.com/

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/

http://www.mediabistro.com/webnewser/

http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/

http://www.mediabistro.com/sportsnewser/

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/

It's what passes for "news" in South Florida in the year 2008. Really.

Wanted to call your attention to a clever and sardonic blog post by Eric Barton that was made just last week at The Juice, the new blog that was born at the Broward Palm Beach New Times at the beginning of the month.

It concerns a subject I've written about very often here -perhaps too often for my own good- and yet no matter what I write, I always feel like I'm not even coming close to sharing 99% of what I actually know to be true and believe.

Anecdotes and facts I've heretofore kept to myself or my close friends, for fear that I'd otherwise sound hopelessly naive for having these feelings: the piss-poor job local print and electronic media do of covering local news in South Florida and holding people in authority accountable.

And what they report on instead.

Of which the most obvious example I can cite for you here and which I have personal experience with is -yes!- the Miami Herald NOT sending a reporter to cover a single Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting since June, despite all the emotional fireworks, shenanigans, recriminations and ethical hijinks that have taken place in those six months, 99% of which have never made it into 

print there.

Yet, their Editorial Board deigns to give actual citizens of this city an endorsement last month in the HB City Commission races, based solely on the candidates trooping off to the Herald's Broward office in Pembroke Pines and talking to them for a few minutes en masse.  

_________________________________________________________

Morning Juice: Reporter Solves Porn Problem, Transsexual Makes Boynton More Boring

December 26, 2008 

Channel 10 Solves Problem of Pesky Porn Bus Handing Out Cash

Channel 10 has this whole team of reporters who do nothing but go around and solve people's problems. And recently, Local 10 Problem Solvers tackled this burning question: Who's behind that van of dudes who go around and pay women $500 to have sex with them? Turns out it's Local 10 Problem Solvers' own Matt Lorch. 

Or at least it was for a day when he went "undercover" to find out who's in the van. Here's an excerpt from Lorch's undercover work:

Read the rest of the post at: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2008/12/local_10_problem_solvers_answers_burning_questions_about_porn_bus.

________________________________________

Old conventional wisdom: Combination of heat, sunshine, crime, vibrant clashing cultures, frequent weather-related crises and criminally-inclined pols made South Florida TV a veritable hot house incubator of solid, knowledgeable reporters destined for heavy use at networks: Ike Seamans, Susan Candiotti, David Bloom, et al.

New conventional wisdom: With a few notable exceptions, South Florida TV is largely the domain of clownish, dim-witted third-rate faux reporters who have seemingly ZERO knowledge of South Florida's history/culture pre-2000, and who seem to prefer covering staged press avails on South Beach, to better practice their interview skills for the demo reel they're sending to Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood, than actual enterprise reporting that requires connecting dots that people in power don't want connected.

And in the world of completely predictable upcoming paint-by-numbers TV network news stories, what's the over-and-under date for the first network TV news story on Black churches from Philadelphia, Mississippi chartering buses to the Obama Inaugural?

I'm predicting we'll see it next Saturday, January 3rd, on ABC News.

No doubt while one of the NFL Wild Card games is on opposite.