Why 'The Spokesman-Review' signs editorials.

Readers of my newspaper, The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, would be amazed to learn that journalists argue about whether to sign editorials.

Our readers appreciate the signatures and take them for granted. They know whom to call with complaints, compliments, questions, or helpful tips. As far as they're concerned, signed editorials are a good business practice, a fairer way for the newspaper to deliver criticism or praise.

No offense, but we sign our editorials to please the readers of The Spokesman-Review, not to please (or annoy) journalists in other cities and not even to start some journalistic trend, although it's intriguing that a few other Washington state newspapers (The Columbian in Vancouver and The Sun in Bremerton) have begun signing editorials as well.

Signatures first appeared below The Spokesman-Review's editorials on February 6, 1994. That first editorial said we wanted to introduce ourselves. It invited the readers to join us in an ongoing community dialogue. At the end of the editorial it said this: "John Webster/For the editorial board."

That signature amounts to nothing more than telling the truth about our Wizard-of-Oz craft. The truth is as follows: Every editorial is written by a human being, speaking for a board. Here is the human's name, and here (they're listed at the bottom of the page) are the names of the board members.

For 11 years, I had written anonymous editorials and had listened to readers complain about them. Finally (I'm a conservative; I change slowly), I decided that the customers had a point.

Here is what the readers said, to convince me:

Don't we have the courage to match our convictions? Are publishers and editorial boards really so muddled and authoritarian that editorial writers cannot bear, nor be permitted, to accept personal responsibility for their work? Authors of letters to the editor must sign their work, for credibility's sake and to deter them from making irresponsible claims. Authors of Supreme Court decisions - the product of a reasoning process considerably more rigorous and consequential than any editorial board's - also must sign their work. So what's our problem?

Readers aren't dummies

Readers aren't dummies. They examine our bold assertions, and they know perfectly well that the reasoning, the research, the rhetoric, the style of writing, and, yes, the conclusions, are mostly the product of a single human mind. It simply has to be so. Journalists work in a rush, with daily deadlines, making occasional mistakes of which our readers also are very much aware. We couldn't, and don't, have time for extended committee meetings to argue over the innards of every editorial. Indeed, if readers knew how hurried the work is and how cursory the debate that goes into the average editorial at the average daily newspaper, editorials might have even less credibility than their customary anonymity implies.

I repeat: Anonymity communicates fear of accountability and lack of credibility.

Ours is a profession that needs every ounce of credibility it can find.

It is not convincing, and it certainly is not impressive except to journalists, to make the grand assertion that editorials are an "institutional voice" that would be diminished by association with its human source. Institutions don't have voices. They do have bureaucracies. They do have employees. Newspapers have a great many employees for whom editorials do not speak, from the reporters to the advertising sales representatives, from the truck drivers to the data processing administrators. Editorials speak only for a select group of our employees. Not one member of this select group has been elected.

We live in a culture weary of bureaucracy and hungry for the human touch. After 30 years of anti-establishment revolt, Americans are less likely than ever to snap to attention and obey when some powerful media institution tells them what to think. Once upon a time, 100 years ago, a little girl named Virginia asked The New York Sun about Santa Claus because her Papa had told her that, "If you see it in The Sun it's so." Today, when papas speak to their daughters about the local newspaper, their remarks are as likely to be unprintable as complimentary. The news media rank down with used car dealerships in credibility, according to more than a few opinion polls.

Signatures add to the product

Signatures enhance both the editorials and the newspapers that print them in several ways.

Primarily, they tell the readers that the editorial board's members believe so firmly in what they write that they affix their names and community reputations to their words.

Signatures also have had a beneficial effect on the internal workings of our editorial board.

Pride of authorship, on more occasions than I can count, has led me to make one more phone call, check one more Web site, and work later into the night to polish my arguments and my writing.

If the editorial board is conflicted and I am on the losing side in a debate, I never write an editorial with which I disagree. Someone on the winning side has to write the winning view. A writer who is not persuaded cannot be very persuasive. In my experience, writers who disagree with their own words often resort either to indecisive waffling or bombast.

As the editor for our signed editorials, I try of course to improve the copy, but I have a new reason to avoid heavy-handed imposition of my own style and de-bating tactics on those of our writers: Those are their names at the bottom, as well as the board's, and I want them to feel proud at the end of day, not browbeaten. Our writers do have to keep in mind that they speak for the board, but the signature gives them license to write with individual style, creative flair, and conviction. As a result the editorials tend to sound more human, more like a discussion among neighbors.

I had hoped, when we began signing editorials, that our board would engage in less micro-management before and after editorials appear.

After all, the writer who digs into a topic usually learns more about it than the board does and examines it more deeply than the board can in its brief discussion.

However, on the toughest issues our board remains as engaged as it ever was, and I have to call that a positive thing, for we all try to avoid picking at details. Instead, we usually function as a guide and a resource for our writers, providing perspectives and arguments that might not occur to one person, writing alone and in a rush. These discussions help us continually to reconsider and define the political heritage for which our editorials stand.

The signatures make it essential for the editorial writers to be comfortable with that heritage.

During the four years that I have been signing editorials I have felt, a few times, that it would be easier to write anonymously. As my colleague Dave Oliveria said the other day after a particularly controversial editorial, "It isn't fun when the whole town's coming down on your head for something you wrote." And yet, he added, "You have to be responsible for what you write. Responsibility comes with back slaps as well as kicks in the butt."

Our readers know whom to thank and they know whom to criticize. They do both, more than ever. Our letters to the editor teem with responses to our editorials. In the days when we wrote anonymously, responses were not nearly so frequent. In my judgment that's a sign our writing has grown more provocative. It's a sign readers care about what our "institutional voice" is saying. Even when they're angry - especially when they're angry - they're acknowledging that we are a valuable presence in the community, and that our struggles to analyze, debate, advocate, and lead are a service worthy of attention. More important, the uproar we create is a sign that readers have accepted our invitation and have joined us in the dialogue that keeps democracy alive.

NCEW member John Webster has worked for 11 years as chief editorial writer for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash. He became opinion editor in 1994.