first, let me say, raw story has been a go to site for me for years, if only for the video clips (don't have a TV). back in the day, i developed a reasonably good relationship with roxanne cooper, who was doing really good work and i know her role there was challenging (now ed./pub.!). sent kudos when merited, and tried to alert them to errors and misleading statements (in one case, a kinda dangerous one). she and i had a good rapport, and she was pretty much without fail professional and pleasant, most often even personable. i just reviewed our exchanges over the years, going back to 2012, and they were pleasant and chummy, almost without exception; seriously, though only about a dozen msgs. the last one was from about 18 months ago, and quite cordial, no issues. have to admit, though, that some of my msgs wrt the ad nightmares have not always been either calm or pleasant; they make me crazy!
all that said, though, the point of my voicing my opinion here and now is this:
YES! AGREED!!
the ads are a complete system overload and often intrusive, the headlines are too often misleading click bait, and they sometimes double post things (i.e., resurrecting previous pieces under different headlines) when their click rate is down.
i hate all of that, given they were once (quite likely, prior to losing net neutrality) pretty damn good. in fact, won an award for their independent reporting on the GOP influence in the prosecution of don siegelman. and, did you know they acquired alternet last spring? so, who knows what kind of pressures net neutrality is putting them through.
so, now, get this.
yesterday i tried to send a simple courteous correction to: corrections@rawstory.com
the issue? the first line in a piece about dershowitz (getting accused in open court of the epstein, er, benefits/conflict of interest) stated
"dershowitz... accessed of ..." blablabla...
obviously, should have been "accused," and just that one letter. but, imho, a rather crucial one.
my msg to corrections (subject line: dershowitz):
he was ACCUSED; not accessed!
thx
immediately it was returned b/c they had spammed my email address!
now, i had sent similar grammatical corrections in the past, as well as a few outraged comments about the ad overload, etc.
so, i simply sent the same msg, but from a different email address. and it worked fine; not returned.
however, when i saw this DU post this morning, i sent the following msg under the email address that did work yesterday:
Your readership is finally wising up to the click-mongering, money-grubbing downward spiral at the site:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211895953
Have to say, it’s been sad to watch.
Ta.
and guess what? they had spammed that other email address as well!
it all appears to be a function of their having signed up for a google group that allows them to set spam classifications. on a whim, i guess; why would they auto-spam all corrections input from readers?
i've sent roxanne a separate email, letting her know what's going on and voicing my concerns. so far, that msg has not been returned, which is a good sign; if i hear back directly from her, i will share that here.
BOTTOM LINE!! folks, so much stuff is going on, it's increasingly important that we not go at these issues impatiently or narrowly. without knowing all the details and context, we may be shooting ourselves in the foot. i don't know if there might be a way to coax them into at least explaining the ad situation to their readers (bet: net neutrality; we were warned), but surely we can lobby respectfully for better communications in hopes they'll respond to their readers.
after all, we need all the good voices and conduits we can get, all hands on deck! no sense in shoving folks overboard when we don't have all the info.
will keep you posted here!
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