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Sometimes mainstream media just makes me laugh. Their outward persona is tough, uncompromising and they want us to believe that they're right there where the action is ... people who are part of the real world and who understand how the real world works. Yeah right!

On the other hand there are people like you and me ... people who are often removed from the real world and who spend all their waking hours online working our nuts off in front of a computer and seeing people as they really are. Yep ... you know that if you want to see people as they really are then all you have to do is wander into an online forum or read the comments section in any number of blogs and you'll see people warts and all.

You'll see trolls and pedophiles ... liars, cheats, scammers and snake oil salesmen by the hundreds of thousands. They're all here being the people that they really are ... here is where the real person who lives inside their skin can come out and have almost no fear of being caught.

I say that they have almost no fear because just occasionally some of the trolls let their guard down or think they're so smart in choosing their nickname or something like their email address without realizing that they're giving themselves away. That's how we discovered the identity of one really nasty troll who lives in this town and you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to discover trolls who just might live in your town or city.

Yes, we see people as they really are while the mainstream media people only think they do. But that's all changing because the newspapers and other media sources have decided that they need to tap into life online so now they've opened up lots of their online reporting to comments from anyone who has something to say.

Suddenly those media people are discovering what many members of the human race are really like and the media is having problems dealing with what they've discovered. It seems that even the staff of the New York Times is a little taken aback by what they've found. It seems that they didn't realize that people could be so nasty ... so vindictive ... so callous and so willing to abuse and insult one another.

But now the New York Times and the rest of the media is discovering what we humans are really like. Newspaper staffers who have been put in charge of the online editions are seeing the comments that each story attracts and they're having problems dealing with what they're seeing. Many newspaper people are describing the comments section of their websites as a never-ending barroom brawl.

Even the very correct and dignified Australian Broadcasting Commission has found that some of the discussions that develop around news stories featured on the Commission's website are getting quite robust. One discussion threat that I saw on the site the other day was so robust that it was verging on what might get you banned on GFY.

Instead of being able to just set and forget the comments software on their website and let it run on autopilot the media is now finding that they actually have to deal with all the trolls, scammers, spammers and abusers that we've known about for many years and these hard-bitten newspaper types just don't know how to cope with the mess that they've created.

Some have even gone so far as to close the comments sections of their websites ... a sure sign that the real world was just too rough and tough for them to deal with. Others are hoping that requiring people to register before being able to make a comment might keep the nasties out but, as we all know, nothing is going to keep them out.

So the newspapers and other media outlets are finally getting in touch with the real world ... it's just a little ironic that today's real world is here online and until now our tough reporters and editors really had no clue just how rough it was here this real world.

I guess it gives us something to think about the next time we go online. Online is where we are going to meet the real people because that's where they hang out whereas out there on the streets and in the malls and clubs nearly all the people we meet are wearing masks of one kind or another.

Perhaps reality has been eluding our wonderful newspaper and television reporters for many years and now they're finding that reality is a lot harsher than they could have ever imagined.