On Anonymity

I changed the title of the blog recently to protect the innocent, i.e., me. In a previous post I touched on the reasons why those of us blog, but there is a downside to blogging. Duncan Black, a/k/a Atrios, hid his identity while he was a professor to protect his university from liability. Publius is still anonymous to the public, though he communicates with his law dawg blogging cohorts. Of course the majority of bloggers are known figures, many of them academicians, who freely express their opinions without fear, but how safe are they?

Several months ago Ivan Tribble wrote an essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education on blogging and the pitfalls bloggers may face in applying for jobs at universities. This touched off a mini-firestorm with academic bloggers who criticized the hiring committees for being too small minded and paranoid. It's easy to confine this situation to academic bloggers, but what about government employees, or nannies?

I may or may not work for the school newspaper, but assuming I did and I criticized an editorial decision or article on my blog, should I get dropped beacuse of it? Though I'm very careful to hide my politics in public, demurring whenever I'm asked to sign a petition, join a group, or reveal my partisan ID, I'm less discerning in my blogging, and therefore I'm more vulnerable to charges of bias. Though I’m far less profane than most, I still use this blog as a repository for my mental musings [no jokes please about the lack of posts resulting from a lack of brain activity], that is if I ever start blogging regularly.

The pajama-clad media may be free, but it has its costs.