Why we dropped signed editorials.

As a child of the Fifties, I roamed a semi-rural neighborhood where many households kept some kind of livestock. On summer days, my pals and I ran in packs, accompanied by our dogs, forewarned by parents that no dog that tasted a neighbor's chicken could be trusted to run free again. Once a chicken-killer, always a chicken-killer.

That memory nagged me a year and a half ago as I was making plans to end the practice of signing editorials in The Spokesman-Review. For almost a decade we had been feeding the blood lust of readers who hungered to know who, specifically, wrote which editorial. Anonymous editorials were an ongoing point of criticism, and yielding to that criticism had earned us cheers. What would happen when we took that morsel back? Snarling e-mail? Howling phone messages?

Still, the publisher, the editor, and I were in agreement. We wanted to restore a more traditional approach in which the newspaper's editorials were its official voice.

The byline phase had been part of a needed effort to draw back the curtain and give readers a clearer view of us and our work. It also was meant to let writers express themselves without having their individualism ground up in the maw of a committee process.

They were expected to reflect the editorial board's thinking, though, and the byline noted they were writing "for the editorial board."

Even so, many editorials soon took on the flavor of personal columns, and that's how letter writers addressed them. On a few occasions, editorials published within a relatively confined timeframe produced conspicuous contradictions.

What I wanted was an energetic editorial board that would engage issues with vigor, its members challenging each other, probing for weaknesses, punching holes and then patching them. That kind of parentage yields editorial offspring with a mongrel's DNA; no one person is responsible or accountable.

But try explaining that to the reader who's just been told he has to sign his smoking response to today's unattributed editorial.

I called Mike Heywood, then editorial page editor of The Columbian in Vancouver, which had dispensed with signed editorials about a year earlier. What kind of reaction should I expect? Quick and intense at first, he said, then dying away in fairly short order.

Mike was dead on. A flurry of letters came in. The phone rang more insistently for a couple of days. A local talk show host put me on the air to chat about it with callers (only a couple, both critical).

By itself, such a calm passing isn't necessarily a good thing. We want to preserve the institutional voice, but not by closing the curtain again. Fortunately, there are other ways to assure openness and accountability.

So, we've made a commitment to accessibility. My name, number, and e-mail address are on the page every day. My phone rings on my desk only, and I answer if I'm here. I return voicemail messages and e-mails promptly. We the institutional we are not hard to track down. Readers can get answers to reasonable questions.

As to the individuality of editorial writers, all four of us can write signed columns when the institutional leash feels too short.

But when a caller asks who wrote that morning's editorial, I want to be able to say: "Are you asking who typed the words? Or who contributed ideas that added depth? Who remembered that historic reference? Who suggested a local source? Who offered improvements at the end of the day? Or which points, if any, the editor/owner added or tweaked?"

Mainly, readers want respect. Give them that and there's no reason to be chicken.

Doug Floyd is editoral page editor of The Spokesman-Review Washington. E-mail [e-mail]