Is it common for newspaper website forums to be dominated by righties?

[arbusto_baboso]

I know the largest of my local papers has an opinion forum that is totally dominated by the most extreme of wingnuts. They are sure not to use the trigger words that would get them banned, but they commonly refer to "Obama's socialism" and insist the the gulf oil spill will show "no effects a year from now other than the economic dislocation". The level of hate, meanness, ridicule, misinformation, and outright lying is amazing. And there are few lefties on line to oppose them.

Is it just because those of us on the left have lives and jobs? Why is this?

[SoCalDem]

1. yes.. because "conservative" became the default position long ago

and ownership of newspapers is predominantly right-leaning these days. The right also PAYS people to "monitor" sites and to actively disrupt.

Lefties are not all that into stuff like that

[Ken Burch]

2. The GOP probably assigns people to post.

There's a real "line of the day" feel to most of the RW posts in those comment sections.

[ThomWV]

15. You see exactly the same thing on C-span's call in show every morning

There is indeed a line of the day and you will hear caller after caller (on all three lines, the Democrat's, Republican's and Independent's) using exactly the same words and phrases to belittle and demean Democrats and their positions.

[foxfeet]

29. Have you checked out the Huntington Herald-Dispatch?

I grew up in WV, so I peruse their site daily just to keep up with local developments. The wingnuts dominate the comments section of the LTTE page and the proud ignorance on display there is truly breathtaking.

[ThomWV]

60. I'm closer to Morgantown, and its garbage paper (Dominion Post)

You can't read it on line, but if you could it would punish your mind to understand how a paper could be so bad and remain in business.

[Bigmack]

48. Actually, they hire people....

from Blog Warriors to write. They get paid by the post.

http://www.politicsandtechnology.com/2007/07/make-no-mistake.html

[Curmudgeoness]

3. Is it because we are posting to the choir here on DU? Actually,

I think that it is like talk radio in a lot of ways---the right wingers dominate. Maybe because they are much more obsessed with all the preceived dangers they find everywhere.

[BootinUp]

4. I have considered it before and yes

I believe it is related to what kind of jobs people have. The RW'ingers undoutedly have nice office or work from home situations that allow them to spend time spamming discussion forums in an attempt to continue the transfer of wealth in their direction.

[ThatPoetGuy]

16. No, I think...

they're retired.

These are people who have no jobs. They got ahead through the privileges of being a white male and they're convinced it's due to their own merits. They spend all day listening to Rush and then they watch Glenn and Bill, and all of them chant that the leeeberulls are coming to getcha. Their grandkids roll their eyes when they launch into their right-wing tirades, but really they're just trying to provide their lives with meaning; they believe they are staunch defenders of the Good and True, protecting wimmen and chilluns from the evils of multiculturalism and feminazism and ecoterrorism, when in fact they're lonely privileged old white men ranting through AOL.

[treestar]

32. Bingo

I can name at least 10 retired white men - and their wives - and they tend to be right wingers. They have all the latest computer gadgets and tons of time.

[Bigmack]

47. Careful... us retired radicals are still here. nt

[mistertrickster]

5. From my experience, yes. We should put together a "hit squad" to

make sure the Libs get represented on these local paper's sites.

On edit--where I live, we get a lot of ex-military living off their pensions posting all day.

So even though they HATE socialism, they basically are living on it.

[mitchum]

6. That has been my observation

I live in a very liberal town, but 95% of the comments posted on the local paper's online forum
are predictable right wing nonsense

[Arkana]

7. It's pretty common for any message board that isn't on a liberal website

to be dominated by right-wing tards.

[Dappleganger]

13. The Hannity Forum is hilarious...

I can't believe these people are evolved enough to sit upright in a chair and type with their thumbs.

[AnArmyVeteran]

52. They can do that???

[Kurovski]

8. They're old and have free time.

retired, with enough money to do it.

as a general rule, the older folks dislike Obama. They don't like a lot of things. I know this shit first hand.

They could also be paid. Don't rule that out. Yes, it really happens on the intertubes. Yes, it does.

[Bigmack]

50. (Gently) Bullshit!...

We Q-tips (white on the top) were heavily over-represented in every war protest I was at. Not wanting generational warfare here, but I have seen relatively few young people getting politically active. I sure as hell don't need an abortion, but I've worked to keep it legal. I've done my war, but I sure have tried to stop the current clusterfucks. Where I'm politically active, I feel like I'm at an AARP convention.

The RW does pay for letters and emails. See my other post on this thread...

http://www.politicsandtechnology.com/2007/07/make-no-mistake.html

[Kurovski]

59. In Seattle it was the younger crowd.

I think it's a hobby for rwingers to infiltrate newspaper website boards. And frankly, it's probably because their crazy crapola doesn't too often make it into the actual paper (LTTE).

Don't tell no one, but I'm a grampa-aged individual!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. Yes. Even in Brazil.

In the newspaper site I read, people post things that would get you an FBI visit in the US, and they get away with it. You think Obama gets veiled public death threats?

You ain't seen nuthin'. NUTHIN'.

[pinboy3niner]

10. Gregory Rodriguez wrote a great column about this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8848670

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. That's how my local paper is

We have a blog there too that I joined when it first started - maybe 8 years ago? And it has been invaded by wingnuts. They showed up in droves after the 08 election.

[Dappleganger]

12. In our area they are dominated by tea party racists

of the lowest common denominator. They are regularly allowed to use the word 'coon' as well. I've seen a number of threats on there if you don't follow their line of thought, too. Anyone who says differently is automatically called a communist and Obama-whore. I'm sorry to use those words but that is the way it is here in Jacksonville. BTW, many of these folks are long-standing members of First Baptist Jacksonville.

[BlueJazz]

21. Lived in Jacksonville for a few years. Had to move.

Couldn't take the hicks and rednecks and right-wingers any longer.
It's not Paradise in St. Petersburg either but there IS a lot of New Yorkers and such here. Much Better. :) :)

[Dappleganger]

36. It's pretty bad here...

we are in the county just to the south and you could probably count us on your hands and feet, that's about it.

:hi:

[rbrnmw]

23. I have seen more than 10 direct comments saying Obama should be killed on our local paper forum

liberal agenda seems to be this month's buzz word along with socialist nazi whatever the hell that is suppose to mean. lots of bad spelling and overall idiocy

[Dappleganger]

35. Have seen those too...

thankfully they are deleted. They crawled out of the woodwork during the primaries.

BTW, welcome to DU! :hi:

[rbrnmw]

40. Thanks

I like it here

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. I believe so, except for the newspapers that are known as more liberal.

i think the conservative shitbags are more likely to have aneurysms about shit all the time, and so need to vent their anger, rage, and apoplexy far, far, far more than the left wing does; and they're likely (because they're delusional about their own power) more inclined to think that posting stuff anonymously is totally gonna win over converts to their cause. "Hee hah, Rimjob, I posted a total in your face rebuttal to some article on the newspaper's website! We'll be seeing more freepers now! Ain't no one not gonna be convinced by my convinciatin'."




The rightwing also tends way more to do shit like this:

"This (event/bill/whatever) is just another nail in the coffin for America and family values that used to make this country great before that radical Obama (where is his birth certificate, anyway?) and his socialist administration started turning us into the Communist Muslim utopia his people and other fascists like him are so enamored with. I used to love this country, now I fear for it's very survival! Obama has taken all our freedoms away and is ready to lock us up at a moment's notice! Don't be fooled - his secret police are ready to go as soon as he gives the word."

(that is, angry mouth-frothing diatribes laced with paranoia, ignorant use of words as synonyms when they aren't, blatant name-calling, broad-brushing, and all generalities, mixed with an utterly fucked up idea of history, current sociology, and future prehension.

(they wouldn't use enamored, but I couldn't think of the word a dumb person would use there)

leftist letters and responses tend to be more like:

"I feel that with this (event/bill/whatever) we will not see the benefits that (specific politicians, listed by name) tell us we'll see. Instead, we will see the opposite: (then a list of specific items) and quite likely some negatives (list of specifics). In fact, this reminds me very much of (some specific past legislation/even/whatever) which clearly didn't work as promised, and in fact led to (whatever specific thing it led to). If we really want to be a Democratic land of the free, we would (some kind of progressive ideal), not (whatever the current proposal is)."

That is to say, a more genteel way, more use of phrases like "I think" or "I feel that", conditionals (might, maybe, perhaps), and actual bona fide data that one can look up and verify.

It's hilarious reading the rightwing shit posted on newspaper websites and the LTTE in the papers. They're so fucking angry, poorly worded, and filled with nonsense - but mostly it's the frothing at the mouth anger that just bleeds through the words. They must all be suffering hypertension! Fucking awful.

[Kurovski]

17. enamored=in love with, in freep-speak.

:rofl: Very nice guide.

[Kalyke]

51. No - they'd go with:

"...and his people think he's the Messiah..."

I also don't think they would use a lot of them, thar big words used in the original post, but the guide was funny. :)

[EFerrari]

18. Yes, I think so. nt

[depakid]

19. Mostly, they're just parroting the same garbage that they hear on AM radio and Fox "news"

You will find a completely different set of people writing on newspaper comment sections abroad.

[Juche]

20. That is what I have seen too

Check out yahoo news sometimes, fucking nuts.

No idea why. I seriously hope it isn't because there really is that big of an army of radical right wingers out there.

Not sure why so many have such wingnuts on them.

[alstephenson]

22. Well it's common where I live.

Arizona. I can hardly believe some of the comments I've read on the Arizona Republic's website forum.

[sweetloukillbot]

26. I worked for the Republic and I was ashamed at the garbage they allowed on the forums...

It's not just the RW talking points - it's the racism, sexism and hatred. An obituary would be put up and the racists would shit all over that story, so the paper started limiting which stories could be commented on. Then they'd go to some unrelated story and spread their racist b/s there, complaining about censorship. As reporters we were told to monitor our stories and flag anything controversial, but who has time to do that - anything race, crime or immigration related would immediately have 200 comments, all vile. They'd block words, so then the posters would get around that by putting spaces between the letters. Ban a user and they're back on w/ a different ID in minutes.

The thing that was funny was the biggest complaint was always about how left-wing the paper was, when the Republic has been unabashedly right-wing since its inception, and is probably one of the top five right-wing papers in circulation (or was 5 years ago, dunno what the circulation numbers are now).

[alstephenson]

42. Thanks for the insight.

Their circulation is pretty pathetic. They've cut the content down and there's not much of interest left. The LTTEs they publish are beyond moronic. Amazing, but they actually came out against SB1070. But then they endorse Jan Brewer for Gov., so there you go. This place is a loony bin.

[sweetloukillbot]

43. My favorite endorsement during my tenure there was for Lieberman in 2004

The endorsement essentially said "We're only endorsing him because he's practically a Republican." And he trumpeted that endorsement EVERYWHERE! Then in 08 they castigated McCain and praised Obama, then endorsed McCain...

They drove out or buried the liberal voices on the editorial page - DeUriate, Talton were laid off, Ruelas writes features now. Benson is still a great editorial cartoonist, and Montini is still around, but that's about it. Funny thing is almost every reporter I knew was a strong Democrat, even the hardcore ones who remain independent to avoid taking sides are pretty liberal. There was only maybe two Republicans in features when I worked there...

[Joanne98]

24. Astroturfing

[IDemo]

25. Everything, even the weather and the latest drunk driving wreck, are "Barry's fault"

Or so you would think after viewing the idjits who post on my local newspaper's site.

[ThoughtCriminal]

27. What else can they do...

after Mom installed the porn blocker?

[w8liftinglady]

28. I'm lucky..my paper encourages all views.The OTHER local paper...it sucks

http://www.elliscountypress.com/news/126/

http://www.elliscountypress.com/news/126/ARTICLE/6885/2010-07-29.html

What now?!’

JIMMIE SIMMONS
July 29th, 2010
So the president, who was referred to as Obama Lama Ding Dong by yours truly, prior to the 2008 Election, is pushing to punish Arizona for enacting a law HIS administration should have been enforcing from the first day he entered the Whitehouse, as the Arizona law is based on Federal law not being enforced.

Out of respect for the office of president, I’ve ceased making that Ding Dong reference, but the temptation persists each and every day. And it is also true, in fairness to this do-nothing-about-illegal-aliens-president, that George W Bush, Willy Clinton, and George Bush I, even Reagan, did likewise – or worse – during their "watch," not necessarily all for the same reason....more at site

http://www.elliscountypress.com/news/126/ARTICLE/6882/2010-07-29.html

Desperate measures

July 29th, 2010

William Horning

[e-mail]

Liberals, Democrats and Socialists of all types are now resorting to using smear attacks and taking every possible desperate measure to derail the progress Americans have been making in the past year to restore our Constitutional Republic.

First, they are attacking the Tea Party Movement. This is a serious issue. They know they have to beat down these patriotic groups to avoid disaster at the polls this fall. How are they doing that?

They are using their "nuclear weapon" - calling the Tea Party a "racist movement." Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, Democrats have stooped to this level before when they used the "nuclear bomb" daisy ad against Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964.

I have been to a number of tea party events, and have seen nothing that could be called racist. Of course, socialists don’t need evidence, they just need emotion. So what if some signs showed Obama as the Joker or comparing him to Hitler. Bush was shown in the same unflattering light. Do we not still have free speech?

I have lived in both the North and the South and have seen both viewpoints. Having taught and coached in public schools with a substantial black enrollment, all the students were "my kids" whether in history class or on the basketball court. I could care less what color they were.

Today, we all need to be Americans, and as black Tea Party activist Lloyd Marcus says, an "unhyphenated American."

The term, African-American, divides us when we need to unite against the real enemy, those that support a one world order. The only racism I see today is coming from the left; groups like Acorn, the New Black Panther Party, the NAACP, and the Democratic Party leadership.

Second, they are passing the most draconian and game changing bills in the history of our country, the most recent being the 2300 page Financial Reform Bill. Of course, your congressman probably did not read it.

Here we are giving the private Federal Reserve and the big Money Center banks even greater control over our total financial lives, when they are the ones that got our country into financial trouble in the first place. Corruption has been rewarded again.

Third, they are stacking most of the negative repercussions of the extremist legislation they have passed into the outer years – 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, with most of the major problems hitting after their hoped for re-election of President Obama in 2012.

Trouble does start in 2011 as the Bush tax cuts expire and the lowest tax bracket goes up 50 percent. I am sure that will help the economic recovery.

Fourth, they are pushing hard for changes in our culture and the way different organizations within our government operate.

The changes they want to make, are the type of changes that in the past, if you had proposed them, you would be carted off to a mental institution. They want open gays in the military in spite of military leadership being almost unanimously opposed to the idea.

According to a recent report by Cliff Kincaid, the Gay & Lesbian Leadership institute says Obama has already appointed a record number of openly LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) individuals. They will work to have the federal government promote their agenda.

If you think their agenda doesn’t matter, how would you like gay males to be blood donors for your local blood bank? To date, this has been banned, but the homosexual community is currently demanding this be allowed, and there are meetings going on this week on the issue. Hopefully, the ban will stand.

As Americans, we need to make sure these desperate measures are seen by the public for what they are – desperate, and not allow these attacks to throw our march back to the constitution off course or scare aware our friends and neighbors from becoming involved.

That is what they want. Liberals must be voted out in November 2010, and of course, Obama must not be re-elected in 2012. Get busy and spread the word. Times-a-wasting.

[Jade Fox]

30. It' a lot of the same posters......

if my local expamples are typical.

I think the stereotype about creepy, marginally employed guys (mostly) who live in their mom's basements has a lot of truth to it. They have time.

[GoCubsGo]

57. The same goes for the LTEs in my local rag

It's the same set of cranks spewing their misinformation and outright lies every other week. Then there's the "Talkback" column, where people call or write in anonymously. The idiots at the paper don't screen them. They just print what comes, regardless of whether or not there's any truth to the comment.

[Jade Fox]

58. Interesting....

Wing-nuts are bound to be drawn to forums where they aren't challenged or fact-checked. A lot of newspapers are providing that.

[treestar]

31. Yes. Right wingers think they have an effect by posting on the web.

I kid you not. They think that uninformed people will read their posts and be convinced.

[eilen]

33. They are dedicated to smearing my local paper's

comments sections and forums. Pure nastiness. They hate poor people, black people, democrats, union workers, women, Obama, etc. You can tell they listen to Limbaugh and Beck. Here is a comment to an article about Mott's hiring scab workers:

"spillchacker July 27, 2010 at 8:46AM
Follow
LOL @ slim....the AMERICAN "WORKER" is the one with a turned back, NOT the company. Oh my, to keep the company profitable the union was asked for $1.50 /hr pay cuts and a few minor cuts in benefits...how horrible. Oh gee.....with so many unemployed SKILLED workers in this Country these applesqueezers want to "play hardball"? Well, I hope they all have to resort to stealing apples from trees to feed their families. Good for the "scabs".....may they all enjoy the fruits of their labor!!!!! PLEASE MOTT'S...DO NOT BRING THESE PEOPLE BACK!!!!! Keep the replacements and move on.....let the union idiots spend the rest of their lives holding signs out front....more people WILL support you keeping the replacements more than caving to rediculous union demands....stay strong Mott's!!!!!!"

I'm posting the actual article in LBN.

[XemaSab]

34. It's certainly true in Redding, California

x(

[Lydia Leftcoast]

37. I've noticed that they all use the same phrases on the same day

This suggests to me that they are parroting what they hear on right-wing radio.

For example, when the Republicanites had their convention in St. Paul, all the righties who commented on the websites of the local papers referred to the protesters as "dirty smelly hippies" (actually a diverse crowd of ordinary people) who "threw urine and feces at the cops" (something that never happened).

Similarly, when HCR was being debated in Congress, the phrases of the day were things like "government health care like the DMV." Well, I was against HCR as it was constituted, mostly because it was NOT government health care, and anyway, the DMVs in Minnesota are outsourced to private companies (and give me Oregon's government-run DMV any day!).

Truth doesn't matter. There are a lot of people who want to be told what to think and how to spread the propaganda.

[DAMANgoldberg]

38. Add the O...

www.charlotteobserver.com

Just wait if the DNC comes to town in 2012! Ms Palin was here in May at the NRA convention and the local media treated it as top story news, even the bleeds/leads station. The local heritage radio station had GOBPgasms on air.

[political_Dem]

39. They are paid to infilitrate as many sites as possible to change opinion.

The worst part of it is that these paid trolls end up making a forum or blog unenjoyable. The RW seems to hire folks with not only the worst manners, but the worst grammar possible. Doesn't the GOP pride themselves for being smarter than everyone else while hiding their lack of educational prowess?

[NYC Liberal]

41. Right wingers don't have a great forum like DU

Being serious here. Ever been to Freeperville? That place is a mess, straight out of the mid-90s. :puke: There are one or two other "well known" ones, one of them being a white supremacist board.

They infest the comments sections of newspapers' websites.

We've got DU!

[old mark]

44. The RWers and the ignorant outnumber us about 2 to 1...and they

are vocal.


mark

[Mimosa]

45. It may seem that way, but it's not true.

Mark, that 2 to 1 figure just isn't real. A lot of working people whom DUers might think are rightwingers aren't really, when one discusses issues with them. I don't know a single conservative who didn't want (and expect) Medicare for all or a strong public option. The politicians and lobbyists just weren't going to allow it to happen.

I think somewhere between 10 and not more than 20% lean rightwing. And they are older males and some females. And most may be a bit more financially secure than many of us.

Rabrrrr posted the most typical rightwing post. I think I've read this 100s of times:



"This (event/bill/whatever) is just another nail in the coffin for America and family values that used to make this country great before that radical Obama (where is his birth certificate, anyway?) and his socialist administration started turning us into the Communist Muslim utopia his people and other fascists like him are so enamored with. I used to love this country, now I fear for it's very survival! Obama has taken all our freedoms away and is ready to lock us up at a moment's notice! Don't be fooled - his secret police are ready to go as soon as he gives the word."

(that is, angry mouth-frothing diatribes laced with paranoia, ignorant use of words as synonyms when they aren't, blatant name-calling, broad-brushing, and all generalities, mixed with an utterly fucked up idea of history, current sociology, and future prehension.

-----------

And they like to call the Preident Barry. Or Soetoro. *rolling eyes*

I wasn't thrilled back when DUers and others were calling Bush "Smirk" and "Chimpy." I expected lowering the bar might come back to bite...

[old mark]

46. The numbers I saw and posted this past week were 40% regard themselves as conservative,

22% as liberals. (This is US adults)...the numbers were on Wiki on an article on US Liberals.
I know some here hate Wiki, but I have no reason to doubt those numbers, and I know "conservative" covers a wide area...

Our biggest problem is that the right OWNS the media and we have no real part of it.

Of course, they profess to think it is "liberal"...


mark

[Crystal Clarity]

49. My local Rag is chock full of them

And I don't think anyone monitors the "discourse"... :grr:

[GoCubsGo]

56. Mine, too. But...

The owners and editors are also right wing nutbags, so it's to be expected.

[H2O Man]

53. Yes, and for a reason.

They are organized at the grass roots level, and take a coordinated approach to this.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

54. My local newspaper online forum is crawling with righties

Of course, Indiana...............:eyes:

[HughBeaumont]

55. Cleveland Plain Dealer - dominated by morons.

Of course, when you have a right-wing arm like the PD, what do you expect?