You should have seen some of the predictions of doom sent our way last spring, when we announced we would begin publishing anonymous letters to the editor.
Some foretold a letters section probing depths once reserved for the toxic stew of racism and hate that our online comments had become before we canceled them, just before the pandemic. No chance of that existed, as we would not have printed letters like that, but a vocal group anticipated out letters columns losing value.
We’re three months down the road, and I’m happy to report the sky did not fall and bedlam does not reign. Our letters to the editor remain as vibrant as ever, including some published without names.
We were nervous when we started, not because we feared toxicity but because we did not know whether we would receive an onslaught. We have not. The pacing has of letters from writers requesting their names be withheld has been light – maybe 10 percent of the letters that came in.
In case you did not hear, we opted to begin publishing letters without names upon request because we felt our prohibition left some voices out of our opinion pages. We pride ourselves on being the community bulletin board, where all perspectives are not just welcome, but invited. We noted at the time that this nation was founded in part based on anonymous speech, which is protected by the First Amendment.
We asked readers what they thought of the proposal, and 86 percent of more than 250 responses strongly favored it. We built some basic rules, such as requiring writers to give us all of their identifying information. We want to be sure actual people write the letters, not organizations or dark money groups.
We’ve run fewer than two dozen since the first week of June, which is a bit more frequent than once a week. Most people who write want their names to appear. We do have a couple of regular writers and go back and forth on using their names, depending on the topic. (We do limit writers to appearing once a month.)
Two subjects dominated the anonymous letters to date, Issue 1 and the debate over a proposed Boston Road exit on Interstate 71, serving Brunswick and Strongsville.
With Issue 1, I suspect some people wanted anonymity because they opposed their party’s position on it. Republicans drove the effort to persuade Ohioans to give up their ability to amend the state constitution – in a naked power grab – but a lot of Republicans voted against it. They rightly saw the danger of taking power away from voters.
The interstate debate comes down to neighbor versus neighbor. Most people want to get along with their neighbors and members of their community, but the highway issue is hot. People are divided and have strong feelings. Some wanted to express those feelings without creating conflict with people they respect or fear.
Some, I have no idea why anonymity was request. A Shaker Heights professor told a tale of sitting next to the Cavs coach, J.B. Bickerstaff, on a flight from Texas to Cleveland. It was a praising letter, but he asked to withhold his name.
As we’ve often said, our letters forum is your forum. We welcome your thoughts on issues of the day and whatever else is on your mind. You can submit them online at https://tinyurl.com/pdletterform
On a separate note, Cleveland ex-pats living across the nation regularly write to tell me they read this column each week (Thanks!) and I want to make sure they are aware of a series about their hometown that has begun running.
It’s a project involving a large percentage of the news team, coordinated by Rich Exner, that is profiling each of Cleveland’s neighborhoods. We often identify Cleveland news by the neighborhood it is in, and our thinking is that many in the suburbs of Cleveland might not know the history, culture and significance of the neighborhoods.
We’ve published a bunch so far, with more to come. They are fun to read. You can find all of them at https://tinyurl.com/pdneighborhoods
I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com.
Thanks for reading.
