The verdict: writers should come clean

It’s not the Oscars or the Final Four, but if you’ve wondered what the results would be in the byline showdown initiated on this page two weeks ago, stand by.

On March 4, I asked whether op-ed commentaries printed in The Spokesman-Review should actually be written by the people whose names appear in the bylines, or is it OK for political figures and corporate VIPs to farm the writing out to hired hands and still take the credit.

The far-from-scientific tabulation of replies reveals roughly a split between those who favor byline purity and those who think we should sign our editorials. (Not that that was one of the options.)

Only one reader came right out and said, what’s the big deal if a senator puts his name on something written by an underling? He agrees with it, right?

Josh Johnson, publisher of the Liberty Lake Splash, must have heard that line of thinking before. “I agree with the Declaration of Independence, and we are planning to reprint it in our July 4 issue under my byline,” he said.

Here at The Spokesman-Review, we have started asking guest columnists to include a statement affirming that they personally wrote the column. If they can’t do that, we may run the column anyway, if they agree to an endnote that explains they had help.

That, in fact is pretty much what David Bray of Spokane suggested (while encouraging us to return to signed editorials).

“When a contributor ‘writes’ an editorial via his/her staff, simply note that, but add to that the caveat that Senator whoever or Congresswoman someone stands behind the editorial.”

That works for me — and, I’m happy to report, for a growing number of contributors. Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton and U.S. Attorney Jim McDevitt, whose commentaries appeared this week, are among the latest.

But many still snort at the idea and turn away. Is that a loss?

Back when he was at the Benton County (Ark.) Daily Record, Splash publisher Johnson recalls, politicians weren’t allowed to write guest columns.

“In the Spokesman’s case,” he writes, “I like the idea of including the ghostwriting information in the endnotes. I’m certainly biased, but I believe newspapers (and opinion pages in particular) ought to set a standard of transparency that far exceeds expectations – even when a biased observer finds it to be a ‘distinction without a difference.’ Even if considered by the reader to be a useless two seconds of their reading time, it at least underscores the newspaper’s mission of transparency, a minor cannon blast in the media’s needed battle to maintain (or obtain, in many cases) public trust.”

William Slusher of Okanogan put it this way: “For anyone to claim he ‘effectively’ authored a composition written by staffers is like a hospital administrator claiming he did the surgery.”

Slusher adds a challenge: Newspaper editors should also keep their hands and pencils off the letters and columns submitted by readers.

“The text the reader sees over the opinion writer’s name should be exactly what he wrote, in toto, errors and all, or the whole submission should be rejected from publication,” he said.

(For the record, Slusher’s comments were used here in parto.)

S.E. Wooley of Walla Walla asks if we “will insist on the same treatment for the various syndicated columnists who employ staffs of researchers and writers?”

The most passionate responses to the March 4 column dealt with unsigned editorials.

“I believe you should identify who wrote the editorial and who contributed to it and list them in endnotes,” said Wayne Lythgoe of Colbert. “Editorials, in my opinion, are trying to sway people to your point of view so you should identify who is writing it so we can gauge where they are coming from.”

Allan LeTourneau of Spokane acknowledged that yes, it offends him when people put their bylines on someone else’s work, but…

“I also disrespect an editorial page that suggests that content of their editorials is the collective wisdom of their editorial staff,” he writes. “We know that you have both liberal and conservative views on your staff and to suggest that there can be consensus of opinions on issues is insulting to the public. It creates suspicion of assignment by the higher powers in your organization.”

Returning to guest columns, Gary W. Smith of Spokane Valley backs the belief that “by” at the top means “written by.”

“I suspect that taking credit for other people’s work and ideas is far from uncommon, especially at the higher levels of politics, government, and business; that does not mean that editorial pages should condone or enable that behavior,” he said (eloquently, I thought).

Former congressional candidate Don Barbieri says we should stand by the policy.

“We elect/follow the leaders who take the time to really understand key issues that appear as ‘opinion.’ The other subjects they simply back but are authored by others are perhaps ‘news,’ but not the core that makes them leaders and credible.”

Finally, this gratifying reply from David Groves, who sometimes arranges words on behalf of his boss, Rick Bender, the head of the Washington State Labor Council.

“Thank you for striking a blow for anonymous hacks everywhere!”

Striking a blow. That’s what makes this work fulfilling.