Student journalists bid farewell to anonymity.

A meeting with some Pennsylvania State University student leaders last fall focused one of my goals as the student newspaper's opinion editor: The Daily Collegian's longstanding practice of publishing anonymous editorials had to come to an end, and soon.

In terms no doubt familiar to many readers of The Masthead, the student leaders wanted to know who was responsible for writing the editorials and why we couldn't disclose who served on the editorial board. They wanted to know why, if we had confidence in our commentary, we would refuse to stand behind it by publishing our names.

It is our policy, I replied, to allow editorial board members to be anonymous to protect reporters on the board from being harassed by sources.

The Collegian is a daily, independently run student newspaper with a circulation of 19,300. The paper has no connection with the College of Communications at Penn State or with the university itself. We are responsible for what we publish and for what we say as a board of opinion.

We also are responsible for an opinions page practice that did not work.

The policy was not helping anyone. Opinion editors before me had been steadfast about The Collegian's Board of Opinion's maintaining anonymity. But I could see during my first semester as opinion editor that it was hurting the board more than helping it, and it was hurting the reporters even more.

We are different from many professional papers, but similar to other college papers, in that our editorial board is composed of anywhere from 10 to 18 members, including the editor-in-chief, the opinion editor, and any willing editors and reporters. Because of the way college papers are structured, it is often too difficult for a student opinion editor, balancing news work and class work, to research and write five solid editorials per week on his or her own. Board members, therefore, take turns writing the editorials.

The board historically operated that way, and it was really never questioned.

We have long believed, and often observed, that reporters who were not on the board would take the heat from sources who may have been criticized in a staff editorial. No matter what the reporters might say, the sources were convinced the reporter had to be been involved in writing the editorial.

It was clear to me that this had to stop - and that meant anonymity had to go. It was really only a matter of how we accomplished that.

I wanted to list the names of board members on the opinions page each day. Some editors didn't like the concept at first, and I was told that reporters would have problems with sources if a highly critical editorial were published about a group they cover. But a new editor-in-chief came into power, and she said that reporters who are not comfortable with their names being published can choose not to be part of the board. We exist for our readers, not our staff.

We reasoned that by publishing the names of the members of the board of opinion (yes, we call it BOO), we would gain credibility with our readers. Groups criticized in editorials would know to whom to direct their feedback. Editorial writers would take greater responsibility for what they wrote; they would be less likely to be overly harsh on a group because the subject would not know who they are. And reporters could show a source the list of names on the opinions page, thus proving that they had no part in the board's stance.

However, we decided not to have the author of each editorial sign his or her name, because to do so would eliminate the consensus appearance of the editorial.

With the arrival of a new semester, a new box appears on The Daily Collegian's opinions page. It publishes a list of board members as well as an explanation of how the editorial page works. And the dreaded curtain of anonymity has been lifted.

Every newspaper, whether run by professionals or students, has to decide how to handle this issue based on its own readership. We have done what we feel is best based on our audience. I do not believe that what is happening at The Collegian is indicative of a trend in student journalism and editorial writing. In conversations with other editorial page editors, I've learned that some editors at student newspapers believe anonymity suggests that the editorials are the opinion of the paper overall, whereas others believe editorial writers should be held accountable for what they have to say.

My experiment began on January 12. I'm sure that by the time our spring semester ends in early May, I'll have new insight on the issue both from staff members and sources. Maybe my successor will take the next step and initiate signed editorials.

But I don't think a return to anonymity will occur. The Collegian wants to be more open with its readers, and I think we have taken a good first step in that direction.

Jennefir Strawser is a journalism student at Penn State.