Wordblog

I am rather sorry that Craig Stoltz has stepped back since posting his simple proposition — “At a time when newspapers must reinvent themselves as New Media, it’s an ideal moment to do away with bylines” — a week ago.

The Washington Post man has added lots of explanation to his original post and produced a new one explaining:

I should have been clearer: I wish death upon only the single-author byline.

All content, whether packaged as a rich multimedia experience or a simple conventional report, should be clearly marked with the names of the team members responsible.

One tactic is a persistent shoulder text box appearing on each online page that carries content for an article or package:

Reporting: Jennifer Lee Editors: Macaulay Connor, John Deiner Photographer: Usher W. Fellig.

Now let’s say it’s a more elaborate package: “After Human Bite, Dog Gets 7 Painful Abdominal Rabies Injections.” It includes a video of the attack taken by a surveillance camera, audio/video gallery of witness photos and comments, and a Q and A with a vet about how dangerous human bites really are to dogs.

The box above would be expanded to include an online producer. The Q/A and gallery would each carry bylines for those elements.

What an awful idea. Just because films have interminable credit lists, there is not reason why the same should apply to news. I can’t believe readers want all this.

Yet there is an interesting debate here. Some have commented that bylines are about credibility: tell that to the Economist.

There are good arguments for and against bylines.

The idea bylines encourage journalists to come up with better stories may have had some truth but is a nonsense when every piece of copy has a name on it. It would also also a good argument for giving the sub who writes a good headline a credit.

It is said that printing writers names provides readers with someone to call if they have more information on a topic. From experience, I would say it also gives readers the chance to complain about an individual; there have been times when I would have wished for the subs name to be on the story so that I was not blamed for the headline or a piece of missing information.

As a reader, I find bylines are a useful guide to whether a story is likely to be worth reading. But that applies largely to the work of specialist reporters and feature writers.

A more profitable debate can be had the circumstances when bylines are really justified. The Washington Post clearly thinks the Craig Stoltz byline is justified because it offers an RSS feed on his stories and the chance to email him.