Only a few major journals continue to print anonymous editorials representing a publication's point of view. Most opt instead to run articles signed by staff or outside experts -- and many in the scientific, medical and publishing communities say that's a good thing.

Image: Guillaume Carels via Wikimedia Commons

Newspapers across the globe are known for taking political stances, with anonymously authored pieces spreading a publication's point of view across its editorial pages. Major scientific and medical journals have been moving away from the practice, but there are some hold outs -- such as Nature and The Lancet -- that continue to print unsigned editorials.

Caleb Alexander, pharmacoepidemiologist and general internist at the University of Chicago, coauthored an opinion piece in a 2006 issue of the journal CHEST entitled, "Should Editorials in Peer-Reviewed Journals Be Signed?" His conclusion: it's probably a good idea.

"I think there's been a real push towards greater transparency in the process of peer review and this extends to editorials published in the journals themselves," Alexander told The Scientist.

He lists a few dangers involved with running unsigned editorials, including the potential for anonymous authors, free from the bonds of accountability, to heap on praise or criticism and the tendency for readers to assign undue authority to an unsigned editorial -- an impression that might be moderated by naming exactly who prepared the piece. "I think requiring authors to sign what they write is an important step in greater transparency and improving the rigor and quality of the scientific enterprise."

Richard Smith, former editor of BMJ, agreed. "My view is that a scholarly medical journal's perspective ought to represent the history and tradition of medical science, and you ought to sign your piece," he told The Scientist.

Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature, told The Scientist that the journal has run unsigned editorials for its 140-year history, and has no plans to stop. "Editorials in Nature have always been unsigned. It is my policy to continue this tradition," Campbell wrote in an email. "They represent 'the voice of the publication.'"

Specifically, unsigned editorials help the journal maintain "a consistent support for the values of science: the dependence on evidence, integrity of process, transparency as far as possible and critical-mindedness."

Spokespeople at The Lancet declined to comment on the journal's policy of publishing unsigned editorials. The journal recently fired one of its senior editors, Rhona MacDonald, after she vociferously complained that the final edited version of an unsigned editorial she wrote was substantially changed without her blessing.

One journal, the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), recently made the switch, and began signing its editorials. Paul Hebert, the journal's editor-in-chief, told The Scientist that CMAJ changed its policy after his predecessor John Hoey was fired in 2006 following a dust up over editorial independence at the journal. In an unsigned 2006 editorial, Hoey criticized the journal's publisher, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), for allegedly interfering with CMAJ reporters writing a story about the prescription of over-the-counter emergency contraception in Canada.

Hebert took the reigns at CMAJ after the CMA convened an international panel to reconsider the remit of the journal. That process included reassessing the practice of publishing unsigned editorials, Hebert said. "The message we'd be sending is that we're hiding behind the reputation of the journal," he said. "In the public's eye these days, transparency of views has become a huge issue."

When Richard Smith started working at BMJ in the late 1970s, the journal ran unsigned editorials, but changed its policy in the mid 1980s. "I found [writing an editorial] much easier when I began to sign it, because then I could be more honest," Smith told The Scientist. "This is not only about credit, it's about accountability."

Science similarly publishes a variety of signed editorials from journal staff and guest authors. A statement on the journal's masthead says the journal serves as a forum for "important issues" in science, "including the presentation of minority or conflicting points of view, rather than by publishing only material on which a consensus has been reached," the statement reads. "Accordingly all articles published in Science -- including editorials, news and comment, and book reviews -- are signed and reflect the individual views of the authors and not official points of view adopted by AAAS or the institutions with which the authors are affiliated."

"I think the statement pretty well speaks for itself," Kathleen Wren, spokesperson for Science's publisher, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), wrote in an email to The Scientist.

One journal, PLoS Medicine, seems to employ a hybrid strategy: Editorials in that journal are signed with a byline of "The PLoS Medicine Editors," but lists later in the piece the individual members of the editorial staff who contributed, and the nature of each person's contribution. (See an example of the way PLoS Medicine "signs" their editorials here.) Listing the journal as the author gives the piece an extra credibility, PLoS Medicine Editor-in-Chief Ginny Barbour told The Scientist. "I think it's very clear that the journal is standing behind whatever we publish," she said. "It actually gives an extra degree of weight."

But it's also not anonymous, she added. "When we write an editorial and all sign it, we're basically saying that we agree with the content of the editorial," Barbour continued. "I think it's very important to document who are the people who participate in the writing of a particular editorial at a particular time."

Related stories:

Senior Lancet editor sacked
[26th May 2010]

CMAJ loses most of its Editorial Board
[16th March 2006]

Untitled and Anonymous Editorials And Other Forms of Provincialism
[12th October 1998]