I have seen the adverts by an anonymous group of people calling themselves ‘Advocates for the rule of law’ in The Sunday Times of Malta.

Are these people playing with words like ‘advocates’ and ‘lawyers’? Just as their advert happens to be on page 13?

Is it by sheer coincidence that Ken Mifsud Bonnici, a legal advisor to the European Commission, used the same turn of phrase when quoted in The Economist of May 13, 2017, that Malta was facing “veritable collapse of the rule of law”?

The similarity is glaring.

My first comment and remark stems from a serious established principle at law and in journalism, that anonymity automatically places paternity and ethical practice directly in the domain of the editor.

The dictionary definition of anonymous derives from the Greek anonumos meaning ‘nameless’. ‘Nameless’ is akin to ‘hidden’.

In the English printed media, serious newspapers like The Economist do not have their articles signed.  They are not anonymous because they use pen names.

The paper’s correspondents refer to the place from where they contribute their piece. Both are easily verifiable. They are not nameless.

Anonymity in your newspaper smacks too much of shady journalism.

A person or persons with the right intentions should never be nameless. It was only during past colonial days that in Malta people writing in newspapers hid behind anonymity. It was their way of by-passing colonial regulations.

Apart from all the above explanations and elaborations, full anonymity in print will always be the sole responsibility of the editor.  This has nothing to do with the sanctity of a journalist not revealing his/her source. The two do not mix.