This isn’t CB radio reincarnated, nor should it (only) be a space for mindless teenage chatter. That’s why most of us prefer openness and transparency in our online discussions (we say who we are, we enable people to contact us). I choose not to link to anonymous blogs, though I do read some and occasionally value their contribution to the debate.
This high-minded attitude leads to some judgement calls. I link to Flackette! (Marie Williams gives her name, though it’s clearly not her photo), but don’t link to a much-discussed site with a similar name (I have no difficulty with the critique it gives of the PR industry, just the dishonesty of hiding behind anonymity.) The matter of ghost-written blogs is a different question; so is the decision of The Economist newspaper to avoid bylines. Now to my point.
An exasperated Tom Murphy cites the case of a public relations intern slating Jeff (‘Dell hell’) Jarvis through an anonymous comment on his blog. Problem is, you’re not as anonymous as you think. Jeff checked the commenter’s IP address and traced it back to Dell’s PR consultancy GCI. Red faces (and much blog chatter) all round.
PR Studies 
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