Press-Citizen's online comments: The good, the bad and the ugly

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Feb. 3, 2010.

By Jeff Charis-Carlson, Iowa Cityscapes

In September 2006, the Iowa City Press-Citizen launched story chat -- a feature allowing readers the opportunity to register with www.press-citizen.com, choose a username and begin posting comments to the stories, columns and letters online.

In the nearly 3½ years since that time, Press-Citizen editors have participated in many discussions about the degree to which the anonymity afforded to online commenters and bloggers affects one of the essential roles newspapers play in helping democracy thrive: ensuring that minority viewpoints are protected against the tyranny of the majority.

In that time, we've gone back and forth as to whether online, anonymous comments:

• Represent a revolution in citizen journalism (which is good),

• Provide a crass way to drive up online traffic statistics at the expense of reasoned, vetted, well-edited news and opinion (which is bad) or

• Do a lot of both (which is just ugly).

In the past few years, we've found that, at times, cyber-anonymity is the only way to allow contrary opinions to be raised without retaliation against those who dare speak out against majority opinion, public officials and institutions.

At other times, however, it's a way for bitter people or bullies to sound off. And in the past 3½ years, we've had to kick off many participants for grossly inappropriate commentary that clearly violates the Press-Citizen's "Terms of Service."

But that at times ugly mix also is why scholars from the University of Iowa Project on the Rhetoric of Inquiry (POROI) became interested in focusing on the Press-Citizen's online conversations during the first session of a three-part public rhetoric seminar, "Media, Space, and Race: The Case of Iowa City's 'Southeast Side.'"

As stories about Iowa City's southeast-side neighborhoods, public-assisted housing programs and urban migrants have become hot topics in local politics, the Press-Citizen's online commenters have been trying to answer difficult questions about media, space and race within the limits placed on them at www.press-citizen.com.

Because POROI seminars usually focus on a single document, for tonight's session, I chose a story chat thread that began in response to a news report about a Dec. 1 meeting in which Iowa City Council approved the second reading of the city's curfew ordinance. A PDF document of the 112 comments on the Dec. 2 story is available at http://tinyurl.com/poroicomments.

Tonight's session, "Words Matter: Online Postings in the Iowa City Press-Citizen," will include a few introductory remarks from me, some prepared commentary by UI professors Frank Durham and André Brock and then a period of questions from the audience.

Although the story chat thread itself is the main document to read for the session, anyone interested in participating in tonight's discussion also might be interested in looking at:

• A transcript of the Dec. 1 Iowa City Council meeting (www.icgov.org/transcriptions/750.pdf),

• The text of the curfew ordinance that was approved (www.icgov.org/ site/CMSv2/Auto/media/release5883/1223200984850. pdf) and

• A copy of the P-C's "Terms of Service" (www.press-citizen.com/section/TERMS).

Tonight's forum isn't likely to "solve" any of our community's complicated problems. But it hopefully will offer a chance to step back and learn about the good, bad and ugly ways we talk about our community.

Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 887-5435. For information on "Media, Space and Race," visit http://poroi.grad.uiowa.edu or www.tinyurl.com/mediaspacerace.

Our View - After Iowa City curfew goes into effect tonight

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Dec. 23, 2009

Our View - After Iowa City curfew goes into effect tonight

It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your 13-year-old is?

It's 11 p.m. Do you know where your 15-year-old is?

It's midnight. Do you know where your 17-year-old is?

You should.

Because tonight Iowa City's curfew goes into effect.

According to the city, unless your children are engaging in one of a number of exempted activities, that means those younger than 14 have to be off the streets by 10 p.m., 14- and 15-year-olds by 11 p.m. and 16- and 17-year-olds by midnight.

Both police and city officials are still working out some kinks in how the ordinance will be enforced. Right now it seems Iowa City police -- at least until March 1 --will be issuing only warnings, not citations, for curfew violations. (Although the police, as always, will be citing for other illegal activities that juveniles are engaged in after hours.)

The council, however, has required the police to keep records of all their curfew-based interactions. The idea is that the information will help the city determine whether the ordinance itself is discriminatory in that its enforcement shows a disparate impact on minority populations.

The ordinance gives police officers discretion as to whether to cite a teen for being out after hours or whether to let the teen off with a written warning. But it's unclear whether the record-keeping requirement would prohibit officers from pulling up alongside a group of teens, rolling down the window and giving an informal verbal warning like, "Hey, guys, it's after hours. Time to go home."

Because the ordinance requires officers to keep a record, they presumably would have to stop everyone and start writing down names. That increases the potential for what otherwise could be an informal warning to turn into a much uglier interaction.

And while the city and police figure out how best to implement the curfew, the Iowa City Council still has more to do to fully live up to its rhetoric of having this curfew be just one component of a larger vision for improving the quality of life in the city's southeast neighborhoods.

We hope city councilors continue to work with the Safe Neighborhood Coalition and other neighborhood groups to ensure that they are responding to the requests made by the people who live in the affected neighborhoods.

We hope the city and the police work together to develop more community-based crime prevention positions like that of Officer Jorie Bailey as well as to implement a youth officer.

And we also think the city might look into how it can help support the development of second- or third-shift child care programming located on the southeast side. That way, the parents affected by this ordinance might have more options for how to avoid leaving their young children home without adult supervision.

Our View - Approve curfew and look for other solutions

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Dec. 4, 2009

Our View - Approve curfew and look for other solutions

Back in September, we added ourselves to the list of reluctant converts to a citywide curfew. And we're pleased that the list now seems to include a slim majority of the Iowa City Council -- even if one of the council members said it was one of the toughest decisions he's had to make as an elected official.

On Tuesday -- after hearing from organizers of the Safe Neighborhoods of Iowa City coalition as well as from a number of southeast-side residents -- the council voted 4-3 to approve the curfew's second reading. The third reading, the final hurdle for the ordinance to clear before being passed into law, will be put on the agenda for Dec. 14, the current council's final meeting of the year before gaining two new members.

"As a standalone tool, a curfew is pointless," said Councilor Mike Wright, who voted in favor of the curfew. "As part of a package, it may have something to offer to Iowa City."

That "package" needs to build on the hard work being done by the Safe Neighborhoods coalition. Volunteers from the relatively new organization have spent the past few weeks knocking on more than 1,000 doors on the southeast side and completing about 350 surveys in which residents explain what they would like to see done to improve the neighborhoods. The results of those surveys still are being tabulated and analyzed.

The curfew alone, of course, won't address the root causes behind many of the high-profile incidents this year -- such as a nearly 60-person brawl on Hollywood Boulevard on Mother's Day, reports of shots fired on Lakeside Drive and Regal Lane on Aug. 5, and a homicide investigation of a landlord found dead at Broadway Condominiums. Many of the worst incidents took place during daylight or early evening hours, and many of the teens involved already were under curfew restrictions through the juvenile courts.

Yet the curfew seems a tempered and appropriate response to residents' concerns. Police officials say that it could be a "helpful tool" in responding to the neighborhood problems identified by southeast residents. And some parents report that it could give them more leverage over their children's behavior.

Besides, the restrictions are hardly draconian. Kids younger than 14 have to be off the streets by 10 p.m.; 14- and 15-year-olds by 11 p.m.; 16- and 17-year-olds by midnight. The ordinance is full of justifiable exemptions, and police say they plan to issue citations only as a last resort -- after verbal warnings and other strategies have been used.

We urge the existing council -- at its last meeting of the year -- to give its final approval to the curfew. Then, after Councilors-elect Susan Mims and Terry Dickens are seated in January, the new council can continue looking at more long-term solutions.

Our View - Continuing the conversation on public housing

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Oct. 21, 2009

Our View - Continuing the conversation on public housing

"Is Chicago Creating the Third Ghetto?" That's the provocative title of Andrew Greenlee's presentation scheduled for 7 p.m. today in Room 2520D of the University Capitol Center.

Greenlee, a 2006 graduate of the University of Iowa's Urban and Regional Planning graduate program, will present his research as a Ph.D. candidate in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Not surprisingly for an academic, Greenlee doesn't offer a yes or no answer to his question. Instead, he focuses on how Chicago's housing policies over the past 10 years (after the decision to demolish Cabrini Green and other projects) have created a "ghetto" very different from the "first ghetto" (which formed with the great migration after World War I) and the "second ghetto" (which was the result of post-World War II housing decisions that led to the creation of concentrated, public housing towers).

"It still becomes about low-income communities that are heavily concentrated and segregated by race," Greenlee said Tuesday, "but in this case, the city has been relinquishing its responsibility."

Although the policies of the past decade were meant to create mixed-income neighborhoods, Greenlee explained, there hasn't been enough market-driven interest for middle- and upper-income Chicagoans to move into these traditionally low-income neighborhoods.

The policies also offered housing vouchers as a way to disperse assisted families throughout the marketplace. But many of the families continue to live in the same low-income areas. As a result, the "third ghetto" often includes the same geographic areas as the first and second ghettos.

"So we end up with individuals in both cases who are heavily concentrated in low-income communities that tend to exhibit a lack of access to basic services, grocery stores and public transportation," Greenlee said.

But the "third ghetto" also marks a disapora of low-income Chicagoans who have moved on to the smaller cities surrounding Chicago -- as well as on into Iowa.

Greenlee said there are a lot of misconceptions about the size and make up of this group. The Housing Authority statistics show that public housing recipients and applicants make up only a very small percentage of the people involved in this diaspora. Yet the result has been some explosive politics in the cities in which these Chicagoans settle.

Given the questions about the heavy concentration of public-assisted housing on Iowa City's southeast side -- as well as in pockets throughout our readership area -- we encourage anyone interested in a productive conversation about these issues to attend Greenlee's talk and participate in the question-and-answer session afterward.

Our View - Include all with a stake in the southeast side

Printed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Oct. 16, 2009

Our View - Include all with a stake in the southeast side

It's unfortunate that it took the recent sense of crisis in Iowa City's southeast neighborhoods to spur a group to undertake the type of survey work now being performed by Safe Neighborhoods of Iowa City. More than 50 members of the coalition -- which formed last month as the Iowa City Council was on the verge of enacting a juvenile curfew law -- have been going door-to-door asking southeast side residents how best to improve safety as well as the community programs they make use of or would like to see in place.

"We're finding out what their needs are, what their issues are, how they feel about the community and trying to help them be part of the process," said Henri Harper, coalition organizer and the juvenile court liaison at City High.

That's an important goal that will benefit whatever steps the Iowa City Council eventually takes to address the root cause of the violence -- much of it involving teenagers -- that has put many in the southeast side on edge in recent months. The high-profile incidents this year include a nearly 60-person brawl on Hollywood Boulevard on Mother's Day, reports of shots fired on Lakeside Drive and Regal Lane on Aug. 5, and, just last week, a homicide investigation of a landlord found dead at Broadway Condominiums.

There have been some concerns that the group's target area doesn't include a wide enough area of what is generally regarded as the city's southeast side. The surveys are being conducted in the sections of the city south of Highway 6, east of Keokuk Street and north of Lakeside Drive. Although there is no official definition of what constitutes the "southeast side," the city generally uses the term to refer to the area south of Highway 6 and east of the river -- which would include the Grant Wood, Wetherby, Pepperwood, Broadway, Southpointe, Paddock and Waterfront neighborhoods.

At the same time, there have been questions raised about why this newly formed group isn't working more directly with the presidents of the active city-sponsored neighborhood associations. The concern is that the coalition's activities could deepen -- rather than help bridge -- the "us versus them" divide.

Yet even those with concerns about how Safe Neighborhoods of Iowa City is gathering the information still wish the new group success in its efforts.

"I really hope that they get somewhere, because it is the only way we all are going to get somewhere," said Joyce Barker, president of the Waterfront Neighborhood Association. "But I think there are a lot of pieces missing and that there are a lot of questions not being asked."

The coalition's organizers said that they are happy to work with anyone interested in improving the area. Although the organizers have not actively sought out contact with all existing groups, they said they haven't been trying to exclude anyone.

We think the city will be a better place if the coalition succeeds in its outreach efforts, but we also think the city council needs to keep all options on the table concerning the curfew ordinance and other public safety proposals.