Fiddle Me This: What Happened to the Trib's Comments?

By Amy Mikel in News on Apr 28, 2008 8:28PM

Remember Rachel Barton Pine? In 1995, the doors of a Metra Train closed on the strap of the case holding the musician’s 400-year-old Amati violin, pinning Pine’s arm to the side of the train. She was dragged over 300 feet, then pulled underneath the train, which severed one of her legs and severely mangled the other.

Pine, now 33, was recently highlighted in an extensive article in the Tribune magazine last month, and spoke about topics like her continued physical and emotional suffering after the accident and her determination to continue performing as a violinist. When the story was posted online, over 170 comments were posted; many commenters seemed to think Pine was a whiner, ungrateful for her second chance at life, and unjustly deserving of the $29 million settlement she received in court. Those comments caught the attention of classical music writer Marc Geelhoed, which in turn caught the attention of the Reader's Michael Miner. Last week's Hot Type mused on the Trib's responsibility to moderate the comments. Bill Adee, the Tribune’s innovation editor, responded by saying that the inaction on the part of the Trib essentially clears them of comment accountability; the Tribune takes no ownership of how people chose to respond to the article.

Except now all the comments from the Trib story are gone. When we looked an hour ago, the comments were just gone. Now it looks like this:

Adee told us in an email that he doesn't know why the comments disappeared.