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I was reading a story on The Express Times’ website, LehighValleyLive.com this morning about Nazareth Council being presented with cupcakes when I noticed comments started appearing and just as quickly they were being obliterated by a moderator.

The story deals with a local blogger, Bernie O’Hare, who presented the cupcakes to Nazareth Council as a reminder of Cupcake CoP Trachta, whose actions have resulted in multiple lawsuits against that borough.

The “cupcake” moniker is a result of a local district judge who referenced Trachta when she dismissed charges against 3 young men whom Chief Trachta shackled and perp walked for the media. They expressed their opinion of him by placing small 1-1/2″ stickers within Nazareth that called for the firing of Trachta.

ET was more than willing to accommodate Trachta and taking pictures of that perp walk. It then followed up with pictures of them that were less than flattering, such as the one with a cigarette dangling from the mouth of one defendant the day of their hearing.

Judge Taschner, before dismissing all charges against the three men, rightfully stated, “Suck it up, Cupcake” referring to Chief Trachta’s thin skin and waste of the Court’s time.

I can only assume that LVL’s moderation is being done by an individual, possibly the writer of the “news item” himself, Nick Falsone, who created a headline and story that gives an impression O’Hare presented the cupcakes as a publicity stunt.

What his presentation was more likely meant as, was to remind Nazareth’s Mayor and Council that they are all cupcakes for refusing to deal with Trachta when they were aware of his questionable actions long before the StickerGate fiasco.

If I lived in Nazareth I might have done it myself, but probably not. I’m a cheap SOB and cupcakes are expensive.

Apparently, whoever is the moderator of comments on the LVL website seems to be intent on removing anything said that is negative about Trachta and the Nazareth Council.

We all know that a reporter can create slant journalism. Most are done as editorials, but The Express-Times all too often allows it to be done as a “news” story. Sometimes not so subtly. However, when comments are allowed and then removed because they call into question the slant, or take an opposing view of the writer’s opinion, then it becomes censorship.

Among LVL’s Community Rules:

• Do not post obscene, indecent, hateful, offensive, defamatory, abusive, harassing or profane material.
• Do not engage in personal attacks.
• Vulgar and insulting nicknames will be removed. Nicknames attempting to impersonate other users will be removed.
• Do not post anyone’s telephone number, street address. or any other personal information.
• Do not post an e-mail address belonging to another person.
• Do not attempt to impersonate other users, site staff or any other person.
• Do not post the same message in multiple locations on the site.
• Lively debate and opposing opinions are welcome, but please behave courteously and responsibly.
• Keep your messages on topic for the particular discussion you are involved in.
• Do not use multiple account nicknames in one discussion. Do not answer your own posts using another nickname.

The comments removed were almost all anti-Trachta, with the exception of one that I read. One said O’Hare should have presented “dog droppings” to the Nazareth council instead of cupcakes. Another by O’Hare himself, calling into question the origin of the comments Falsone quoted, was removed as well.

What is remaining, for the most part are comments that support Trachta, name calling toward the “Sticker Gang” and O’Hare, and those that support the Nazareth Council. Those comments seem to be favored by the “moderator,” who is allowing the same type of disparaging remarks toward them to remain, that he saw fit to remove if they were against the Nazareth “cupcakes.”

I’m also amazed that someone is so quick to moderate this story on a Saturday morning.

When both myself and O’Hare were the subject of a hateful rant by a local resident, left as a multi-paragraphed libelous comment that was not only off-topic, but made accusations of pedophilia upon me and identified my place of employment, it remained through an entire weekend and part of the following Monday, despite numerous emails and requests for its removal.

That clear violation of LVL’s community rules wasn’t as important then, in having that comment removed, as compared to anyone who writes something unfavorable to Falsone’s slant on what he wrote today.

There has always been a problem with moderation rules on LVL.

Most of it could be alleviated by The Express-Times not allowing one person to use multiple identities. The way their system is set up now, you simply need different email addresses to set up multiple accounts. There are no less than 20 free email programs available to the public. Pay $5/mo to a website like GoDaddy.com and you can create up to 500 different emails. Each one a potential commenter using a different persona on LVL.

Rather than The Express-Times implementing a system that requires a phone number be submitted for an auto-respond text or call verification of an account, which would prevent multiple accounts being created, they continue blindly allowing new registrations from the same individuals.

I don’t know how the paper survives.

It is now printed in NY and trucked in, which explains why it is useless in getting the lottery numbers from the previous night.

And it costs too much.

I don’t pretend to be a journalist. I write what I think, which is why I rarely allow comments and most of what I write is put under the category of “Opinions.” By not inviting comments I’m not tempted to remove one that disagrees with me.

Perhaps The Express-Times should come to the realization that they are reaching the point of becoming little more than a local blog, but one that is behind on technology and late in reporting any worthwhile news.