There’s an interesting story in today’s Billings Gazette, in which the organizer of the anti-marijuana ballot initiative concedes that the effort probably didn’t gather enough signatures to get on the ballot.
But then I noticed one very odd thing: comments appear to have been disabled on this story. In other words, there’s no comment bar under the story. Was it an oversight, a mistake? Is this something the Gazette does on certain stories it fears will attract too many trolls?
I suppose it could be a mistake, but it’s not one I recall having seen before. And if the Gazette wasn’t interested in encouraging trolls, it certainly wouldn’t have run pieces like this one, with comments enabled.
So what else could it be? Hmm. Is it possible that comments were disabled for this story because the initiative sponsor, Steve Zabawa, owns a car dealership in Billings, as the story points out? And not just any dealership but the Rimrock Auto Group behemoth, surely one of the Gazette’s biggest advertisers.
Zabawa has come under heavy criticism in the past for his efforts to make marijuana illegal. But public criticism is the price one pays for being involved in public affairs. One can only speculate whether Zabawa asked to have comments disabled or whether the Gazette did so out of the kindness of its heart.
Maybe there’s a perfectly good reason for this. Maybe I’ve missed when comments were disabled on other stories. If I’m wrong I’ll acknowledge my error. Hell, I’ll even apologize.
