FROM THE NEWSROOM:

Everyone knows Mondays are bad enough. But it can be even worse when a whole segment of the population is angry at you.

That’s what smacked me in the face first thing in the morning when some e-mailers nailed us over a reader comment blog that appeared on our front page.

The reader comment, running in our feature we call Web Threads, was written by someone who described him- or herself as a “past TeWinkle parent” and included a sarcastic reference to the bus schedules at TeWinkle Middle School.

And while I’d rather not repeat the comment, it also included the oft-disputed allegation that the campus is rife with gangs.

“I was outraged that such falsehoods would be printed in something other than the National Enquirer or some unknown blog site,” wrote Robert Knapp, a real TeWinkle parent. “To print such a comment as if it were fact, by a ‘Past-Tewinkle Parent’ is not only false but borderline slander. The simple fact that the person wasn’t willing to put their name behind their comment should have been your first clue that you probably should think twice before printing such trash.”

And that was just the beginning.

Here’s an excerpt from a response by Kirk Bauermeister, the principal of the school:

“I have worked extremely hard to dispel these misconceptions and myths about TeWinkle,” he said. “I have been out in our community on 13 of the past 14 nights to spread the good news about the things happening at TeWinkle.

“We have a very orderly campus and a healthy and thriving school culture. Maybe you could do a follow up article and talk to staff about the changes that have precipitated one of the highest API score increases in the district. Unfortunately, people who have never stepped on our campus (or ever will) will read this and take it as fact. Please allow us to keep moving this school in the right direction without these needless distractions.”

Um, let me explain.

Let’s take the offending blog comment, which was, on its face, inaccurate.

Reader blogs and reader commenting is a fairly new phenomenon for us here at the Daily Pilot.

We adopted the practice about a year ago, but only recently has it really taken off and taken a life of its own.

And only recently have we taken those web-based comments and printed them in the newspaper in their anonymous form.

The good news is this: Story commenting has become an extremely popular way for readers to express their views and opinions and sometimes feud on the issues we cover.

Even still, the forum it has created is a healthy one, and if done right, reader commenting can keep an otherwise lifeless print story alive in cyberspace for days or even weeks on end.

The bad news is the Internet is, as one of our editors put it to me, a “rough and tumble place.”

That rough and tumble atmosphere is what seems to chafe our longtime and loyal print readers.

Yet, we can’t put this genie back in the bottle, no matter how hard we try.

We can, however, and will do a better job of monitoring those comments that appear on our front page to ensure that they have a modicum of good taste and are, at the very least, not the most incendiary thing in the paper.

We’ll also do something else. We’ll keep searching for the truth.

Ironically, it was last April that these TeWinkle gang comments started cropping up on the reader blogs.

In response, we put reporter Michael Miller on assignment and told him pay a visit to the TeWinkle campus. You can read his story at www.dailypilot.com/articles/2007/04/01/education/ dpt-tewinkle25.txt.

But if you don’t have time, here is an excerpt:

“TeWinkle undoubtedly has its rough days and its troublemakers. Nearly every student or adult I talked to had some negative story to impart. The eight hours I spent on campus, though, didn’t offer much in the way of fireworks. Touring the school from end to end, I saw quiet classrooms and noisy ones, veteran teachers and new substitutes, kids who walked in the commons and kids who had to be reminded not to sprint. I might have gotten a different picture on another day, but on Wednesday, at least, TeWinkle looked pretty commonplace.”

The upshot? Either the TeWinkle gangsters all decided to play hooky that day, or the rumors were flat out wrong.

I have to say, I had a similar experience a couple of years ago when readers insinuated the Westside Boys and Girls Club was also overrun by gang members.

I was invited to spend an afternoon there by then-director Dan Monahan.

The accusations, I learned, were nothing but a bunch of hogwash. There were no gang members, just a bunch of young kids trying to improve their lot in life.

Sure, some of them had closely cropped hair and white shirts and jeans, but gang members? Hardly.

That’s the most disturbing part of this debate and the aforementioned reader blog.

For those who wish to spread innuendoes and further their racial stereotypes, the truth hurts their diabolical cause.

It’s far better for them to keep telling the lies over and over again.

So in the best of all possible worlds, the Daily Pilot will be there as a forum for those with opinions on both sides of the debate in print and online.

But we’ll also be there with a big spray can of Lysol for those who prefer to spread rumors and lies instead of the truth.

TONY DODERO is the director of news and online. He can be reached at (714) 966-4608 or via e-mail at [email protected].