U.S. - At least a handful of Disclosure-haters in downstate Illinois are probably in withdrawal today since they don't have their obscene forum to slander our news organization, as Gannett/McClatchy unexpectedly pulled their reviled "news" forum topix from the worldwide web some time this week.
There's been no explanation for why the obscene site, which featured completely unmoderated forums that were a study in the legal definitions of slander, libel and defamation, just shut down. But any attempt to find it results in redirection to Patch.com, a viable news organization which we've written about in the past. If you've hung on to your recurring e-Edition membership, or if you have a Week Pass or want to get on (or even a Day Pass), you can read about our coverage of Patch's Joe Hosey from a few years back, Joe being a real journalist who, like us, has been targeted for his real coverage of stuff going on upstate.
Topix, unlike Patch, had a wide spread. The unmoderated forums could pop up for any zip code and for any topic, and most of it was dedicated to libel, not of public officials, but of private individuals (which is the definition of defamation), a lot of it without the knowledge of the victim, since topix generally had ones of readers in any local and was basically the last refuge of the mentally deficient and intensely petty. Over the years, we tracked the main offenders who dissed our publication down to about four: Roy Finley, Susan Feldhake, Jan (Peyton-Mills-Burno-whatever) and Eric Gregg, although they were infrequently joined in their anti-Disclosure angst by such folks as former Marion police chief John Eibeck and then there's always Brian James O'Neill, the latter of which we just won't even go into here.
Topix has been around for well over a decade and devolved into the crudest of forums, ultimately being sued a few years ago after an attorney in Texas successfully won a defamation claim against the company. Burno, mentioned above, attempted such a thing in 2014 but did it backwards, not suing topix for what THEY allowed, but instead going after certain individuals she suspected were slandering her instead of forcing topix to give it up, all in the effort to prove Disclosure was behind it. All that came of it was that Burno's suit turned up nothing of the sort, and she was unable to track anything back to Disclosure...mainly because we never posted on topix. In fact, since 2011, it was a condition of employment with this publication that an employee must not post on topix (which is why Finley went nuts, as he was a stringer here for awhile but couldn't resist posting his arrogant rants on the topix forums). Type "Burno" in the search field and see the returns; guaranteed they are highly amusing and interesting reading.
Burno (as well as the aforementioned and those of their ilk) is going to be hard-pressed to continue her slanderous rants now that topix is gone and Patch has no such forum.
We attempted to find out what happened that got topix pulled, as well as when, exactly (since we don't get on topix, we had to be told by a correspondent), but of course, as is the standard with such unctuous sites, there's no way to contact anyone to issue a query.
No matter. The world is better off without them.