The mystery man lurking behind Door #3-or the mastermind behind the column to my left-is no longer a shadowy figure, as you'll see at the bottom of his piece.
You read us right-we're outing Monday, Monday.
Starting next week, the identity of The Chronicle's weekly humor columnist will be included at the bottom of his/her/their work.
This is not a punishment for the comment about Asian students in the Pratt School of Engineering published in last week's humor column-a comment that has garnered much attention and criticism. While this writer's and previous humorists' work are certainly contributing factors to our decision, the abolition of Monday, Monday's anonymity-now and perhaps in the future-is something we have long pondered.
The decision is twofold.
First, it is an action ensuring that every writer for this paper-funny or unfunny-is held responsible for his or her words. Secondly, it reflects our view that the anonymous qualifier for Monday, Monday has been abused. We have seen some writers surpass their stated function as incisive, insightful and witty social commentators, veering off into the absurd, defamatory and humorless. And while we do not see the need to yank Monday, Monday off our pages right now, it is time to do something about the structure of this column.
The sheer number of news outlets in the world today means the consumers of news are literally bombarded with information. Readers and viewers have to sift through that wealth of information instead of tacitly accepting everything as true.
Those same readers and viewers will thus go to the most credible and reliable sources for their news (or, in this case, for their laughs). Without transparency and accountability to readers, a publication cannot be reliable-and it certainly cannot be credible.
The Chronicle can hardly profess to be any more on the cutting edge than The New York Times, Slate.com or CBS News. Yet we deal with the same issues of ethics and responsibility. We have watched as these major media organizations provide more and more information and insight into their production processes; we have watched as they detail source relationships or explain their reasoning for including some news stories over others.
But the days of trust between consumers and producers of news are not over-hardly. With the abundance and sheer speed of information dissemination today, a newspaper must provide a little more information in order to earn-and keep-that trust. This means ensuring that the right people are held accountable, and it means keeping our readers informed when we make such changes. It is about defogging the frosted window between us. We are no longer living in "the age of information"-this is the age of all the information.
We are a volunteer-run publication entirely independent of the University. Without a reputation of credibility, we would not only cease to be read-we would cease to exist. Were we journalistically unsound, the manpower bringing you these few newsprint pages would dwindle and, ultimately, disappear. Achieving a good reputation is one of the incentives we have to do what we do-and if we didn't think we could do it, I doubt any of us would be here.
It is thus my hope you will take this action in the name of greater transparency and credibility-a way to serve you best by giving you all facts.
In a community collectively pursuing erudition, what could be more important?
Sarah Ball is The Chronicle's editorial page editor.
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