Media Nation » anonymous http://www.dankennedy.net By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:10:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 More on anonymous comments http://www.dankennedy.net/2010/02/10/more-on-anonymous-comments/ http://www.dankennedy.net/2010/02/10/more-on-anonymous-comments/#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:43:59 +0000 Dan Kennedy http://www.dankennedy.net/?p=7278 Lowell blogger Richard Howe wrote a post last summer urging his anonymous commenters to identify themselves. He sent me an e-mail yesterday, and said that though he didn’t have much success, he does think the conversation at his site became more civil. Here’s an excerpt from what he wrote last July:

I’ve often said that local blogs are the modern day equivalent of the neighborhood coffee shop where everyone gathered to talk politics. These intensely local gatherings, duplicated hundreds of times around the city, provided a solid foundation for democracy at its most basic level.

But when neighbors gathered at the coffee shop to talk politics, they didn’t wear bags over their heads to mask their identities. In the same way, those who stay anonymous online are not making a positive contribution to this vitally important community building function of local blogs.

Well worth reading in full.

]]> http://www.dankennedy.net/2010/02/10/more-on-anonymous-comments/feed/ 3 Two cheers for anonymous sources http://www.dankennedy.net/2009/12/15/two-cheers-for-anonymous-sources/ http://www.dankennedy.net/2009/12/15/two-cheers-for-anonymous-sources/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:48:51 +0000 Dan Kennedy http://www.dankennedy.net/?p=6841 Yes, anonymous quotes should be used sparingly. But in my latest for the Guardian, I argue that they are just like anything else in the journalist’s toolbox — a help to readers when used properly, a bane when abused.

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