by Terence A. Dalton
Dalton is an assistant professor of journalism at Western Maryland College in Westminster.

In Westminster, Maryland, one week this past December, the Carroll County Times printed 109 comments from readers on its editorial page. Ninety-six of them were phoned in anonymously and printed without signatures. The other thirteen were signed letters to the editor. Editorial page editor Michael Blankenheim, who says the paper initiated its "Readers' Hotline" last October, adds that callers seem to be "spread across broad socioeconomic classes" and that most Hotline calls are "more personal and spontaneous" than signed letters. In Elizabethtown, Kentucky, anonymous comments called in to the News-Enterprise have become so popular since the paper began accepting them last July that the 17,000-circulation daily recently decided to print them six days a week. Editor David Greer likens his "Editor's Hotline" to talk radio.

These papers are among a small but growing number of dailies and weeklies that have decided to open up their editorial pages (or feature pages in some cases) to readers who have opinions to offer but don't want to see their names or addresses attached to them.

Typically, readers phone in their anonymous comments to a tape recorder. The editors who use these hotlines emphasize that careful editing -- for libel, taste, personal attack -- is the key to a safe and successful hotline column.

Dan Warner, editor of the Lawrence, Massachusetts, Eagle-Tribune, says his paper receives about thirty "Sound Off" calls a day, about half of which are used. "We don't use any accusation, no matter how harmless it may seem, that has not [already] been public," he says. "So you can't call in and say, 'I think it's awful the mayor is beating his wife' unless he's already been charged with it." David Greer says that, while he initially had qualms about using anonymous comments, "I've come to believe that, for a certain type of comment and opinion, attribution is not necessary. In some cases, journalists are a little too hung up on attribution, and [requiring it] frightens people away."

Not surprisingly, many editors recoil at the thought of filling their editorial pages with anonymous comments from readers. "I would never do that," says Jerry Dhonau, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Gazette. Dhonau, a former president of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, regards the growing use of reader hotlines as "more gimmickry than anything else. I just like to see names attached to letters. They tend to be more responsible that way."

Other editors worry about short-changing readers. "If you open up your letters to the editor section to blanket anonymity," says Ed Jones, managing editor of the Fredericksburg, Virginia, Free Lance-Star, "you'd be depriving your readers of important information they need to judge those opinions, as well as raising a question of fairness to the folks being criticized."

At Maryland's Carroll County Times, readers entered this debate in late February, after the "Readers' Hotline" published several anonymous comments critical of local community leaders. That touched off a war of words on the newspaper's editorial pages.

"Anything that is spoken or written anonymously is not worth hearing or reading," wrote one anti-Hotline reader, Kurt G. Wenzing, Jr. A pro-Hotline caller, meanwhile, hailed the column as "a great way to express one's opinion," and added some advice for offended community leaders: "The criticism comes with the office, people. Take it or leave it." The advice, of course, was offered anonymously.

Journalists who favor reader hotlines say they see little difference between source anonymity that often goes unchallenged in news stories and reader anonymity on editorial pages. "Why is it controversial to take a quote from Joe Sixpack and run it anonymously when journalists routinely take anonymous quotes from high-level jerks at the State Department and run them without a second thought?" asks Maura Casey, an editorial writer and columnist for the New London, Connecticut, Day -- which, despite Casey's urging, has so far refused to open the editorial gates to anonymous callers.

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