You may have noticed that our articles don’t have an author byline. This is by design. Our articles lack bylines and our journalists remain anonymous.

Generally, newspapers and websites use bylines to identify the journalists who write their articles. The ComoxValley.News family of news sites does not. This is unusual in today’s media landscape.

Why do we take this approach?

A few reasons. The first is that ComoxValley.News is maintaining a tradition that other publications have abandoned. Historically, many publications printed articles without bylines or under pseudonyms to give individual writers the freedom to assume different voices.

The second reason is that ComoxValley.News’ articles are anonymous to allow our writers to speak with a collective voice. Stories and headlines are discussed and debated each week in meetings of our small team. Our journalists often cooperate on articles. And some articles are heavily edited. Thus, most of our articles are the collective effort of ComoxValley.News’ team, rather than of a single author. The main reason for anonymity, however, is a belief that what is written is more important than who writes it. The focus should remain on the work. 

Finally, ComoxValley.News’ feels that traditional local journalism is broken and needs a rethink. This approach is an experiment, we’ll see how it goes.

We are resurrecting some forsaken traditions and we pride ourselves on disrupting conventional wisdom. Our decision to forego bylines remains central to our identity and a distinctive part of our brand.