I left a comment with a bugmenot username (address) pointing to this post, but mine disappeared when I logged out as well.

“Technical glitch” is the fallback excuse for what was really “policy blunder”. You can be assured that this media outlet is basically a dishonest one. To right themselves the head honcho needs to put his/her foot down and say this is not going to happen again. They can’t take criticism? WTF?

I have posted pro law enforcement articles several times using the pseudonym TimeArrow. A few months ago, when disagreeing with editorial policy, my posts also disappeared into the ether when not logged in. Moreover, I was banned from posting to the forums.

When I discussed this with electronics media folks, I was told by a very distressed web master just how hard they work and that I could not just go around and criticize the Star. He didn’t understand that the criticism was specifically directed at editorial policy.

I do not know if George Cogswell, the new publisher, knows the extent to which editorial license is exercised with regard to posts and in the forums.

As I stated in a post (paraphrased), if the Star is to survive in a world that is increasingly digital, their success in that arena would be short lived if most people in the county were aware that actual censorship was their policy.

On the positive side, Star advertising (not endorsed by editorial folks) took on the Most Wanted of Ventura County in partnership with Crime Stoppers as of 2/16/07. It appears in English on Tuesdays (page A3) and in Mi Estrella as Los Mas Buscados del Condado de Ventura on Saturdays. This effort has contributed to the arrest of over 70 fugitives. Additionally, Crime Stoppers has been a factor in the arrest of others through spontaneous tips and the scholastic program.

Bob (805)512-6996

Having spent a number of years living in Ventura, I can tell you that the Star is and always has been a punk operation, a local rag worth little more than the local event listings. And I thought this 20 years ago, back when I thought the LA Times was respectable.

Howry just came seem to get it right, can he?

Pathetic.

Y’all need to write the Publisher by good old snail mail. Each real letter received equals several hundred readers in their minds.

I just contacted the office of the publisher and owner George Cogswell for a response. Their office was “wait, what??” Should get interesting.….

I just spoke with publisher George Cogswell, who summarized that it was a “low level employee” who initiated the block user toggle thinking it was his job to protect the editor. Cogswell said they had dealt with the employee and the problem “aggressively” and that the blocking would not continue except for profanity issues. I suggested they make an acknowledgement and a mea culpa. We’ll see.

I just spoke with publisher George Cogswell, who summarized that it was a “low level employee” who initiated the block user toggle thinking it was his job to protect the editor. Cogswell said they had dealt with the employee and the problem “aggressively” and that the blocking would not continue except for profanity issues. I suggested they make an acknowledgement and a mea culpa. We’ll see.

Yes, and places like the LGF and Hot Air silence dissent all the same - one voice, one sanctioned opinion, and sometimes, they’re wrong. Now that’s different by how?

Think before you blindly release your rage.

sethstorm: places like LGF and Hot Air allow comments, and they’re quite clear about the fact that they only allow registration during certain quick windows. But the presumption is once you’ve registered, you can post there and your posts are visible for everyone to see. They don’t pull this chicken$#*% “block user” ridiculousness on people they don’t like. if they ban you, which they don’t often do, and certainly not for a well-argued, good faith difference of opinion, you know you’re banned.

Fundamental difference. I’m surprised you can’t see it.

Not only did they delete my comments, but I actually received an email from Bruce McLean, AME Multimedia/Digital Content Manager at the Ventura County Star advising me that I had been banned from posting on the site. (See email below!)

Interesting reading the posts here and learning that George Cogswell, said a “low level employee” initiated the block user toggle thinking it was his job to protect the editor. Cogswell said they had dealt with the employee and the problem “aggressively” and that the blocking would not continue except for profanity issues. Does George Cogswell know about the email I received from Bruce McLean who attempts to justify their policies. I am outraged at the VC Star’s dishonest explaination of their deleting practices and their editorial guideline.

I questioned their editorial integrity and their motives when determining which comments are deleted. The vast majority of the comments that were deleted were critical of the Star - PERIOD! Criticism they earned!

Regular readers have come to expect the sloppy and shallow regurgitation of unverified half-truths they call reporting. And many use the comment section as an opportunity get the truth out to the public. I guess if the Star was actually interested in reporting the truth, it would already be in the article.

The Star’s actions speak louder than their words and can no longer attempt to mask their true intentions.

The Red Star’s all out assault on the freedom of speech clearly reveals their ‘Politically Correct’ agenda. This PC driven word-tweaking Marxist organization is attempting to control and manipulate the community they claim to serve and attempting to silence those who notice.

Below is the email I received addressing their “TECHNICAL GLITCH”!

——-Original Message——- From: “McLean, Bruce” Sent: 11/28/2007 5:42 PM Subject: You’ve been banned… for now Hello, I wanted to alert you that you’ve been banned from posting comments on our site. I usually don’t let people know they’ve been banned, but in your case there’s a reason I’m telling you, which I’ll get to in a bit The reason you were banned was your response to my removing a series of comments from the “Police arrest suspect in ‘examiner’ case ” story. First off, those comments were removed because they drifted off into the issue of immigration. This happens often on our site. In this case, there was no reason for it. The story made no mention of this man’s immigration status. And, as I said in my own comment, that was the reason I removed them. You retorted with a series of remarks. You stated in one of those comments that nowhere did it say we removed comments for being off topic. You were mistaken in that statement. If you look directly above the box for writing comments you’ll see the text “You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy.” You also took us to task for saying in our user agreement that we can remove comments for any reason at any time. There’s a reason we put that there. There are a number of issues that we can’t anticipate may arise in our comments. For instance, we once had someone posting someone else’s address and phone number in the comments. Now we could add that — and a number of other items — to the list of reasons we can delete comments, but that would be a really long and boring list. That phrase we use is a catch-all that covers all those things and the things that we haven’t thought of yet. You also spoke of freedom of speech. We like freedom of speech, but we also like to maintain standards. Just as we wouldn’t allow certain letters to the editor to run in our print newspaper, we can’t just allow people to say anything they want at any time in our comments area. There has to be some rules. That’s not true on every web site or blog, and anyone who doesn’t want to follow our rules is perfectly welcome to start their own web site, blog or whatever else they’d like where people can say whatever they want without rules. The reason I’m letting you know all this is I think you’re one of our valuable commenters. You generally make intelligent, relevant points and you bring something interesting to the site. Even when you criticize us (which, it seems, you enjoy doing), you often make valid points and you will have noticed those remarks generally aren’t removed. But in this case, you went too far and kept on going. Now you may not care one iota about any of this and I may have just wasted 10 minutes of my time and yours. But if you see my point in all this, and you’d like me to remove you from the list of banned users, I’m perfectly willing to do that with the understanding that you’ll stick to our rules. Thanks, Bruce McLean AME Multimedia/Digital Content Manager VenturaCountyStar.com