The Times, its leaders, and anonymity

Following our NightJack story, Guido asks the perfectly reasonable question - why are Times leaders anonymous? And, he says, could we cut that out, please.

As I say, perfectly reasonable. But a misunderstanding both of what leaders are, and how they are composed.

The leaders are not anonymous, they just aren't individually signed. I will explain the difference.

The editorial column is the collective judgment of the newspaper, as determined by the Editor. And of course the Editor - currently James Harding - is not anonymous.

If the leader was signed by the person who wrote, say, the first draft, that would give the incorrect impression that the article reflected their opinion rather than that of the paper. And it doesn't.

The leader topic and line is agreed at our leader conference. The person assigned to draft it might have been a dissenting voice, but still undertakes to set out the opinion decided upon by the Editor.

In many ways, then, the leader writer is akin to a speech writer. Certainly they are closer to that than to a columnist.

Indeed, on occassion bloggers have made mention of the difference between the view I express in my column and The Times's view on the same topic. This, even though I may have worked on the leader at some point myself.

The other reason leaders are not individually signed is that they are not individually written. Guido refers to two leaders - one on spending, the other on the BBC. Both of these had three people working on them at different points. This is common. Indeed a leader never goes straight into the paper from one writer.

Yet even listing the three people who drafted the leader might not be misleading. Often the central thrust, and the choice of topic, is suggested by someone who does not then work on the leader at all.

Times leader writers - myself, Philip Collins, Michael Binyon, Antonia Senior, Camilla Cavendish, Oliver Kamm and Joe Joseph - all work on different parts of the paper. So on any given day, any one of us may not be available to contribute to a leader.

However, we all attend leader conference and all have some responsibility, therefore, for what later appears.

Times leaders are not, therefore anonymous. But if the comparison with NightJack is being made, there is a further point.

Should someone decide that there was a public interest in knowing the precise details of how an individual leader was drafted (similar to the very obvious public interest in knowing the identity of a police officer publishing case details on the web), then they might wish to launch a journalistic investigation into that leader.

And should they then print what they found, I wouldn't object at all.