Anonymity, or the possibility thereof, is the great double-edged sword of the internet. On the one hand, to paraphrase the legendary New Yorker cartoon featuring a canine at a computer, the great thing about the internet is that no one knows you're a dog. The ability to communicate without identifying yourself can be very liberating, and in the case of political dissidents or whistleblowers or gay teenagers in small, conservative towns, it can be the only thing that makes communicating possible at all.

Yet anonymity carries with it, almost by definition, a lack of accountability. It liberates people to bombard strangers with spam, or to hurl insults with impunity, or steal intellectual property, or manipulate community conversations to personal ends. While achieving a level of anonymity that cannot be breached by a subpoena from law enforcement is not so easy, it can be done. And in most cases nothing short of a crime will lead to the "outing" of someone who takes some basic steps to remain unidentified.

This topic is on my mind this week because of a scandal in the blogosphere involving a Los Angeles Times reporter, Michael Hiltzik, who, has been engaged in a running battle with several right-wing bloggers in Southern California. It turns out that he was leaving comments on some of their blogs, and even on his own blog, under a pseudonym. When he was outed last week by one of his nemeses – a man named Patrick Frey who blogs under the name Patterico – the Los Angeles Times shut down his blog and promised to investigate.

Mr Hiltzik is a former colleague of mine, and someone whom I would consider a friend, professionally speaking. I tried very hard to hire him when I was editor of the Industry Standard, without success. He's extremely smart and a terrific reporter, and I've always liked him personally. I was flabbergasted by his actions in this situation – leaving pseudonymous comments praising his own arguments and attacking his adversaries, and then, when caught, defending his activities on the grounds that lots of people write blogs and leave comments using pseudonyms.

But just as surprising to me was how many bloggers seemed to view the situation as no big deal. John Dvorak, to cite just one example, saw nothing wrong with the pseudonymous posting, and uses the case as an example of why newspaper-sponsored blogs are a contradiction in terms. Others, including some of his enemies, say that looking silly in public is punishment enough for what was, at worst, a poorly executed gimmick (he was busted when a blog moderator noticed that comments from Mr Hiltzik and an anonymous commenter came from the same computer).

Much as I hate to say it, given my personal relationship with Mr Hiltzik, I beg to differ. Journalism, or public writing of any kind, is fundamentally a trust business. Readers need to trust that the writer doesn't have a hidden agenda and is giving it to them straight, whatever it is. Editors, when there are editors, have to trust that the reporter has done his work and isn't making things up. (Contrary to what many non-journalists think, it's extremely difficult for even the most attentive editor to catch deliberate, carefully planned fabrications such as those of Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass).

To comment pseudonymously in a conversation in which you are openly participating under your real name is fundamentally deceptive. Any publication, be it a one-man blog or an august establishment such as the Los Angeles Times, has an obligation to its community to make a good-faith effort to be what it says it is. To do otherwise is to play people for fools, for some ulterior motive.

Anonymity, as Mr Hiltzik's case shows quite readily, can easily become a tool for dishonesty. To the extent that it only involves ridiculous pissing matches in which people spend lots of time trading well-crafted insults (which is mostly what Mr Hiltzik, Patterico and company were doing, anonymously and not), it's easy to dismiss as unimportant. But ultimately almost any meaningful communication depends on the integrity of those doing the communicating. And in most situations, the best way to assure integrity is for people to put their names behind their words. Otherwise it's all just a game – and for that, I'd rather head to an arcade.

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Jonathan Weber is the founder and editor in chief of NewWest.Net, a new type of regional news and information service focused on the Rocky Mountain West in the United States. He was previously the co-founder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard

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