Where did the VA comments go?
A few readers wonder if there was some back-channel pressure that led to comments being removed on a controversial story.
A few readers recently noticed that some of the comments posted to our story about VA's IT troubles had disappeared, giving rise to some suspicions. "Why are all of late May's and all of June's comments missing or were they removed because of the pressure the VA gave them?" asked one. "Oooops, did FCW go all VA and lose some data? Where did the most recent comments disappear to? Heat rising in the kitchen guys?" asked another.
Online Managing Editor Michael Hardy responds: The truth is much less interesting than the theories. 1105 Media's development team upgraded our content management system over the weekend, and in the process there were a number of hiccups that we've been unraveling. For one thing, many comments vanished – not just on this story. Blogger/columnist Steve Kelman emailed me to inquire why comments on his recent blog posts had disappeared, and we saw the same thing happen on other stories.
This is a normal part of any major system upgrade, and as it has progressed, the comments appear to have been restored. To address a larger issue, though: FCW does not bow to pressure from the agencies and individuals we cover. While we will always correct factual errors, we don't remove stories, comments or anything else just because someone is unhappy with an accurate portrayal.