Why we granted a writer anonymity

This week, for the first time, the Concordian granted anonymity to one of our writers. This is pretty unusual for us. In my opinion, the publication of writers’ names keeps people accountable; people are less likely to say crazy or untrue things when their name is attached. Just take a look at anonymous comments all over the Internet, they’re often pretty crazy and pretty extreme, but you don’t see that places like Facebook, where most people go by their real name. The second thing they allow is for the audience to know who the writer is and judge their credibility, they can find out what that person has done and or written in the past and use that information to make an informed decision on the writers credibility.

In the past, when writers have asked for anonymity (or to use pseudonyms) we have always denied these requests on these grounds.

But in this case, the writer had what we felt was a good reason, they feared for their safety if they expressed their views.

The story in question, on the niqab issue, has already received a comment saying that this fear is bogus, that many people have expressed these sorts of view and they have not been in danger.

That is true, and if this writer were a person from a different background, we would not have been willing to grant them anonymity.

But this is not the case here; the writer comes from a religious Islamic background and is a member of a new-Canadian community. The individual felt that their safety was in danger because members of their community would see this article as a betrayal.

We are in no position to judge weather these fears are well founded, only that – in my view – they were sincerely held.

Because of the writer’s background and experiences, we felt that their take was unique and fascinating and that it added a great deal of insight to this heated debate. We felt that getting this opinion out there was important.

Would it have been better if the writer’s name was attached and this explanation was unnecessary? Yes, and the writer’s name itself would have helped to provide some of this context but we felt that it was an appropriate, though difficult, decision.