Forum Editorial: Why we don’t allow anonymous Letters to the Editor

EDITORIAL MUG: Editorial art Vertical

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e got some feedback on social media recently about our Letter to the Editor policy, specifically about the requirement to always include the name of the author, so we thought we’d take some time to address it here.

As journalists, attaching our name to every word we say is a daily occurrence, so we can forget how jarring it sometimes can be to have your name in print right there next to your words. But for the same reason we think it’s important for us to put our names on our work, it’s important that everyone who contributes to the Forum does the same.

So much of our community conversation nowadays takes place at a distance, with layers of insulation that, unfortunately, encourage us to say things that we might not say if we had to say it to someone’s face or to have our name printed right alongside it.

We believe public discourse requires trust and good faith that everyone involved in any given discussion are being genuine with their opinions. It’s hard to have a conversation — whether as a community or just one-on-one — if you don’t know who you’re talking to or hearing from.

A big part of why we have our names on our news articles as well is to help build that trust. When you read a news or sports story in the Forum written by a reporter, you know exactly who is responsible for what’s in it. We don’t always get everything right all the time, just like anybody, but we also have a dedicated section for corrections each week. Although we never like making mistakes, honestly we do like making corrections, because it — we hope — shows our readers that what’s in the Forum each week is written in good faith.

In the opinion section, we ask the same of all our contributors — simply that they be willing to stand by what they have to say, whatever it may be.