Transparency Builds Trust

I've been thinking a lot lately about anonymity, full disclosure, and trust -- largely sparked by a celebrity squabble of the type I don't usually follow carefully. Last week, a judge ordered Google to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who had called model Liskula Cohen a "skank" and "an old hag", among other elegant epithets (some background on the original suit can be found in a New York Daily News article from January, here, and a New York Post article on the judge's decision can be found here).

The case generated a great deal of press ink, perhaps because Ms. Cohen is so beautiful and apparently a regular in gossip columns as well as fashion magazines, perhaps because the epithets seemed so junior-high-ish, and perhaps because many were surprised that Google was ordered to reveal the blogger's identity (who turned out to be a 20-something acquaintance of Ms. Cohen).

Among the commentators was Randy Cohen, the New York Times columnist who writes the weekly "Ethicist" column in the paper's Sunday magazine, and who also writes an online blog for the Times, "The Moral of the Story". In his Tuesday 24 August blog post on the Liskula Cohen (apparently no relation) case, Randy Cohen argued that anonymous posting has become "so toxic" that "it should be discouraged".

At one point, he quoted feminist writer Katha Politt, who said that anonymous posting "has nothing to do with the brisk and vigorous exchange of ideas often said to be the reason for anonymity. Because there are no ideas and no exchange."

His post now carries a parenthesis noting that Katha Politt is Randy Cohen's ex-wife. It did not, originally, as caught by the "NYTpicker", a blog that bills itself as "a daily look inside the newspaper of record". To quote: "Ironic, isn't it? One paragraph after insisting that it 'deepens a reader's understanding to know who is speaking,' Cohen keeps that very understanding about Pollitt to himself -- as though to call her 'the writer' is an adequate credential to be promoted as an expert by Cohen in the NYT.'" (Full post is here; I am indebted to one of my nieces for bringing the post to my attention; a second post that day notes that Randy Cohen, in a later discussion of the issue with NYTPicker, had discussed his relationship with Katha Politt with his editor and that they had not considered it germane, but that he was indeed modifying his post to reflect their former relationship).

Who is "The NYTPicker"? According to the site, it is devoted "exclusively to the goings-on inside the New York Times -- the newspaper and the institution itself. Written by a team of journalists who prefer to work in anonymity, The NYTPicker reports daily on the internal workings of the nation's top newspaper, and comments on its content."

I find it ironic that the NYTPicker believes in the importance of its own anonymity, when it calls Randy Cohen for not fulfilling his obligation to full transparency.

It is true that there is a long and important tradition of anonymity in political reporting -- including among the Founding Fathers, perhaps most famously in Ben Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanack" and most importantly in the Federalist Papers (these examples are among those cited by Randy Cohen in his original blog post; New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd also mentions the importance of anonymity in political reportage -- where the risks to life and limb are real and severe -- in her column in today's paper on the Liskula Cohen case. She quotes the late Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black saying, in 1960, "It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes." Ms. Dowd then adds, "But on the Internet, it’s often less about being constructive and more about being cowardly.").

When there is no risk of political repercussions, anonymity does seem to be more about cowardice than about principles -- it lets the anonymous writer whisper (or shout) things that he or she would probably not say in public, for attribution.

Moreover, transparency builds trust. Trust is the glue that holds not only personal relationships together, but also professional / business ones. I trust my fish market to carry fresh fish, and to tell me honestly whether the Pacific salmon they carry is farmed or wild. I trust my friend to tell me whether the suit I'm considering buying is really flattering or not. Trust is not always easily earned, and once lost, it is never easily regained (one of my senators -- Joe Lieberman -- is out of luck as far as I'm concerned on the trust issue.).

As Randy Cohen says in his blog post, "To promote the social good of lively conversation and the exchange of ideas, transparency should be the default mode."