Letters to the Editor
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To Joan Walsh
I certainly didn't mean to insult you, so I'm glad you didn't take it as such.
In answer to your question, I feel that way for several reasons. When you get right down to it, some of them don't have a whole lot of hard support beyond that I do feel that way, just to be honest straight off. I think some do, though.
It's like this for me: You are in a curious position with regard to the use of a blog. The words here apply to more than just the blog. You're not a blogger running a blog, you're the Editor of a major online publication. So it's a bit odd to me to look in your blog for stuff that applies to the publication outside your blog, regardless of the fact that it's effectively not separate from the publication.
I myself find blogs to be curious creatures with their mix of helpful facts and real-world experience or actual journalism...and the flipside: pure opinion, bad journalism or no journalism, et cetera. Blogs are no doubt an evolutionary step in new media, but we don't know what they'll evolve into yet.
But given what they are right now, I wouldn't expect, by way of analogy, to find statements on my company's direction and policy on my company's chief exec's blog.
Similarly, I don't expect to have to read a teammate's blog to get part of the information picture about the project we're collectively producing. If there's something we need to know, I expect that to be put out on a channel that's all signal and no noise. There's plenty of blogs out there that are inside views on some project or group process, but I can't think of one that's also being used as an actual management tool by the project participants themselves.
Blogs are often signal and noise. Like your going to the ballpark isn't quite on the same level as your changing the anonymity policy at Salon. Know what I mean?
My opinion is that it's bad information architecture and usage. Like imagine it's 2009, and there's a new Editor at Salon because you expired in a paroxysm of ecstasy when Democrats retook the White House in November of 2008.
Let's say you're Joe New User and you're thinking about subscribing now (because of the obvious commitment to ideology the previous Editor demonstrated). You want to get the editorial policy and review its history.
Are you going to look at the previous Editor's blog archives to get that? Or X Editors down the road's blog archives? Wouldn't you kind of gravitate toward a From The Editors section if one was provided? Dunno, maybe I'm just wired incorrectly, but that's where I'd be looking to pick up the signal I was after.
I look at your statements as the Editor as being like an ongoing evolving contract between you as a publisher and me as a subscriber. I don't expect to have to reread my terms of membership every time a policy changes, for instance. Nor would I want those, say, spammed to me in my e-mail to make sure that due diligence is being done in regard to keeping me informed of what's going on with something in which I'm a participant.
From The Editor is a good place for this content. I like that the blog is by and about Joan. I also like that From The Editor is by and about Salon, if you follow.
I understand your feelings about using From The Editor. Having to be the community member that Puts Out The Word on thus-and-such. The leader, speaking from the lofty position that doesn't feel very lofty at all, but ain't nobody else gonna do it. Been there. It's yucky. Yeah, people think you're an ass, no matter what. But sometimes it's got to be done, right? Can't please everyone and all that.
Tough line to walk. I don't envy you. I have liked this also, I think it's been good too, in this particular instance. I just think as a matter of consistent practice it would be possibly not so good to adopt. Just saying.
Enjoy your weekend!
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I'm for keeping the Anonymous option.
Even though trolls do tend to post anonymously, with this new system, they will be identifiable by Salon staff, who will presumably quash serial abusers of the letters-to-the-editor forum.
The value of anonymous posting is for people who have real insight into an issue, but can't speak openly of it – perhaps because it would endanger their employment prospects, or because it regards a sensitive medical issue, or because their "handle" is inextricably attached to their real identity and they fear attacks in the real world for a legitimate but provocative revelation or insight they might make.
I have used the option more than once when discussing a sensitive or inflammatory issue which I would prefer not to be associated with for the rest of the history of the internet. I'm sure many other Salon readers have, as well.
We must all remember that every word we write in this ephemeral medium has the potential to rise to the top of our Google search, for ever and ever.
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Matty D.
i didn't really understand the essence of your objection. if there were an *article* by joan walsh that explained the new rule, you wouldn't have objected? and that it was in the blog, instead blurred important boundaries to you? is that it? magazines are corporations while blogs are sole proprietorships? and that there is a large staff with important media connections makes it a more like a corporation. is that right? to me it's entirely different. Salon IS Walsh. *she* determines the direction like the mistress of a large estate. so it's really *hers* and the blog is just another "room". in fact, the way i see it, is that Salon, itself is merely the *vehicle* for Joan Walsh's rise to...whatever. maybe the future will prove me right or the present will prove me mistaken, but that's my take.
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Just one more thought to add about the Anonymous option...
At least three of my perhaps six anonymous postings have been "Editor's Choices." I would never have made those particular remarks without the cover of anonymity, so I'm quite certain that the "anonymous" option is not without value.