Unsigned musings now rule, not exception
Sid Salter, Perspective Editor for The Clarion-Ledger and a longtime state political columnist, reminisces about a laughable attempt a dozen years ago by former state Rep. Tommy Horne of Meridian to force newspaper editorial writers to sign their name to their work. Your dutiful editor at the time was working in a small weekly newsroom and was, in fact, signing his editorials, as some opinion writers did when it was an individual newspaper’s custom.
We found it deliciously ironic, nevertheless, that Horne would call for such at a time when he also supported secret deliberations for conference committees. His term and squirrely ideas on editorials faded away, but Salter now astutely points out that many opinions exchanged between newspaper readers on their Websites are pointed and, more often than not, quite anonymous.