UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
National Catholic Reporter (NCR) editor, Dennis Coday, evidently with NCR’s lawyers’ help (possibly on my prior advice), has finally replied to me today with a one paragraph “fait accompli”. This is after my four years of making thousands of NCR comments and writing two NCR columns. Coday told me “we” had reached an “impass”, even though he never discussed this either with me or with the general NCR blogging community that supports my right to comment, which of course he should have done. Does he think he is Cardinal Mueller or that I am Sister Elizabeth Johnson?
Coday’s approach here is a bit like “one hand clapping”. It had been almost three weeks since NCR banned me suddenly, without any prior notice or warning, subjecting me to needless and unnecessary grief and even reputation damage that could have been avoided or at least minimized by NCR’s sending Coday’s limp one paragraph three weeks ago.
See below our full e-mail exchanges and a link for more background.
Coday’s response, in effect, indicates that some unspecified persons or persons and/or unspecified editors and/or Coday, without any discussion with me, concluded:
1. Some of my NCR comments were too “aggressive”, without specifying which ones or in what way they were too aggressive;
2. I made too many comments when I commented;
3. I made too few comments when I took breaks from commenting;
4. I had earlier been suspended once for a brief period for unspecified reasons from commenting; and
5. I should take a hike and comment elsewhere, without even a chance to delete my present comments or adjust my future comments. “Father knows best”, it appears.
During this almost three week period of unnecessary delays, I have been subjected in NCR comments, without any opportunity to reply, to bloggers’ endless speculation as to the reasons for my being banned. Some of this speculation was personally offensive and insulting and most of it was inaccurate. That still troubles me. …
DENNIS CODAY’S BELATED E-MAIL REPLY ON SEPTEMBER 2:
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 13:49:10 -0700
From: dcoday@ncronline.org
Subject: Re: I’m blocked? What’s up ??
To: Jerry Slevin
“Dear Jerry:
In August after receiving several complaints about the aggressiveness of your commenting on the website of NCR — including the tone of the comments and their frequency, after consulting with other NCR editors who monitor website comments and after reviewing similar complaints against you made earlier in the year, which resulted in your being barred for a short time from commenting as well as your decision to temporarily absent yourself fromNCR discussion boards a couple of times, it was my opinion that we had reached an impasse. You have repeatedly demonstrated that you have no intention of moderating your behavior in our comment forum to conform to our posted code of conduct. For this reason, I decided that you should be permanently barred from making comments on the NCR website. You have no shortage of other online forums where you can share your thoughts and ideas; I trust you will make full use of those.”
Dennis Coday
NCR editor
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.