Exactly.  The Don Imus issue tells us that outing racism works.  Showcase the racists for the jerks they are.  

Perhaps they're used to only doing anything with their comments section when they get an email complaint, but otherwise just let the discussion happen.  Maybe 0.1 FTE's...  

Now to have to put a body on it full-time, at least for a while, is seen as just too much of a cost for the news division to devote to.  

At least until they hear it from the public and realize rewarding the racists (by shutting off comments entirely rather than just banning them) is bad for their credibility.  Or that's the hope at least..

The problem for CBS is that they are now discriminating against a candidate because of his race. To avoid that they could cut off comments on all candidates or they could spend the money needed to filter out racist comments and ban further posting by that person. Some blogs will announce that a particular person has been banned and why they were banned.

Jerome, I agree with you. Instead of sweeping it under the rug and treating Obama "differently", it seems like CBSNews would do well to cover the story of what's happening on their site. Try to interview some of these creeps, even on TV, and show them for who they are. For example, racism is less tolerated publicly at least. So then, who is really behind the racist comments? Has a group of racists loosely organized itself to attack him there? Is some other larger group involved or are these just hate-filled individuals to whom cynical competitive (conservative?) campaigns may soon attempt to appeal?

Blocking comments on Obama stories will not stop racism nor will it stop racist comments. Those people will find other outlets either on or off CBS' sites. Racism is real and does impact the presidential race. But to what extent? I would think that CBS would be interested to find out and share with its viewers and readers. And CBS should allocate the internal resources necessary to have clean, moderated discussions if they are going to host them -- or recruit community moderators from their readership as Jerome suggests. It's frustrating that CBS would not see this as an opportunity to build traffic to their site AND awareness about racism rather than looking for ways to avoid their own audience's feedback.

The bottom line: they aren't helping Obama or themselves long term through this action, IMO.

The racists are out there, and they need to be exposed. It's people like these who make it necessary for Obama to have Secret Service protection so soon.

I doubt we'll see CBS provide the resources for moderating comments -- that's their choice, but shutting them down on one candidate is obviously problematic. CBS has now decided that race-based censorship/online reporting is suddenly acceptable.

This is another example of how the dominant culture gets so queasy about race that they throw common sense out the window in a panic rather than engage in a difficult, complex issue.

My post on it is here:
CBS.com has shuts comments down on Obama stories

... that this is part of a disturbing scare tactic that I've seen emerge since the Secret Service announcement.

The Chicago Tribune lowered its "Obama Clock" from 11:50 to 11:48 (he wins if he get to 12), partly because of the Secret Service announcement.

And then this CBS thing was announced. It's as if there's some undercurrent that says "Because Obama's black, and there are some psycho racists in this country, it would be bad for America if he wins."

Very disturbing, indeed.

Personally, I love the comments boards as they are - if anything, I think allowing those folks to write their comments provides the casual reader a little window into the often-twisted, typically uninformed and virtually always propaganda-focused neocon spew. I think it's a wonderful idea to give 'em free rein to hang themselves with the rope CBS provides. It's a great tool to reinforce the fact that many of those on the opposite side of the argument are hateful, uninformed people. The whole point of anonymity is that we get to see someone's real feelings. And their feelings are SOO ugly!

For my part (disclaimer, I'm a fanatic poster on CBS, and often have to force myself to NOT go there day in and day out) I go there for a few reasons. Top reason is to hear the best the "other side" can come up with, and tear the argument down. I look at it as a test on the issues. The only problem being that the best the other side comes up with rarely is too challenging to refute.

It certainly says something that CBS pulled comments on Obama though. They don't often yank comments on stories (I've seen it done maybe twice or so in the last year), and for them to completely unenable commenting on a subject (in this case Obama) is a bit surprising. Still, like I said, the people commenting there don't hold back and I'm sure there was no lack of racial slurring going on. I suppose the only question would be the one about equal treatment - I read comments about killing gay people, nuking Arabs, etc. all the time. Sometimes the comments get scrubbed, sometimes they don't. IMO it'd have to be a pretty severe bunch of comments, and lots of them, for CBS to make a wide-reaching decision like this one. Kinda scary.

What, CBS can't afford a gatekeeper?  If inappropriately racist comments are made, get rid of them.  Why punish the whole for the sins of the few?