The Chronicle‘s policy of uninformative bylines is attracting attention from a couple of prominent blogs.
National Review’s Corner links to Little Green Footballs, which criticizes the following byline from a recent op-ed:
Zappala is a part-time teacher in Los Angeles.
As Charles Johnson notes, that’s not really the entire story:
A Google Search on Mr. Zappala’s name, however, reveals that although he may indeed be a part time teacher, he is also a full time peace activist from a full time peace activist family; in addition to the Houston Chronicle, Salon, and the Star Tribune, his articles appear regularly at sites such as “Occupation Watch,” Counterpunch, and the openly communist People’s Weekly World newspaper. He’s been callously exploiting the death of his brother to argue his anti-war agenda for months now, in many articles. Google has more than 3,000 hits for this guy.
That seems like useful background information that Chronicle readers might like to know.
We’ve been calling attention to the Chronicle‘s byline practices for a while now, and have been unsuccessful at getting an explanation for them. Perhaps the scrutiny of some prominent, high-traffic blogs will prompt a response from 801 Texas Avenue, although I’m not holding my breath.
Matt Bramanti previously criticized the op-ed in question on Lone Star Times.
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