{"id":97739,"date":"2015-09-08T08:32:13","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T06:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=97739"},"modified":"2015-09-09T15:43:44","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T13:43:44","slug":"news24-is-shutting-down-its-comments-section","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/97739\/news24-is-shutting-down-its-comments-section\/","title":{"rendered":"News24 is shutting down its comments section"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.news24.com\/Columnists\/AndrewTrench\/Farewell-to-comments-Why-we-are-making-a-change-20150908\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>News24 Editor-in-Chief Andrew Trench has announced<\/strong><\/a> that they will\u00a0switch off comments on articles from 11\u00a0September.<\/p>\n<p>He said 24.com will \u201cjoin international news leaders by implementing an important change in how we handle comments on our site\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He said\u00a0they will implement \u201ca different approach to how we handle user contributions and engagement with our content on our platform\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have decided that we wish to be known for the quality of our content rather than for our comments,\u201d said Trench.<\/p>\n<p>He said the \u201ctone and substance of many of our comments appear increasingly at odds with the mission of editorial excellence which we have set for ourselves\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He said News24\u2019s commentators insist on pushing the boundaries of free speech in South Africa, and that many comments drift towards hate speech at worst, and are often laced with prejudice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInteresting and considered contributions are drowned out by a cacophony of insults from a minority of users.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trench said they will continue to invite user contributions to be submitted to their MyNews24 platform.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cContributions will be evaluated by our editors and published if we feel that they are interesting and valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on media<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Media24 must pay for its role in apartheid: group\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/94495\/media24-must-pay-for-its-role-in-apartheid-group\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Media24 must pay for its role in apartheid: group<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to Government wants to transform the media to reflect the South African story\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/89524\/government-wants-to-transform-the-media-to-reflect-the-south-african-story\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Government wants to transform the media to reflect the South African story<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to SA media copyright case heard in court\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/86752\/sa-media-copyright-case-heard-in-court\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">SA media copyright case heard in court<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News24 Editor-in-Chief Andrew Trench has announced that the site will switch off comments on articles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":97741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[9278,26,3428],"class_list":["post-97739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-comments","tag-headline","tag-news24"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97739"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97927,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97739\/revisions\/97927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}