Effective today, WTOP has disabled the comments feature on our articles.
This decision was not made lightly.
As stated in our , our goal with the comment boards has always been to foster a space for civil dialogue on the many issues we cover daily. WTOP values free speech and our role in protecting the First Amendment.
However, over the past year, the discourse on our comment boards has devolved into sometimes hateful and racist dialogue, which is a direct violation of that policy and inconsistent with WTOP鈥檚 journalistic standards and principles.
Monitoring the comment boards to ensure our policies were respected and followed began taking an increasing amount of time away from our primary mission of reporting the news.
To the many WTOP.com readers who engaged in respectful conversation on our website鈥攚e regret that the acts of some have brought us to this point.
WTOP remains committed to offering alternative platforms for the discussion of important public matters.
WTOP has robust and communities, and we encourage our readers and listeners to engage with each other and members of the WTOP staff in these forums. Readers can also submit comments and questions via our . These submissions are聽read 太子探花 news managers on a daily basis.
While we understand the decision to remove comments from our website will not be welcome by all, we hope you understand and respect our reasons.
Questions or comments about our change in policy can be to WTOP.
