While it is popular in the press and other "news" organizations to write in the first person for a personal narrative effect, it is now internal policy to no longer write editorials, news articles, and commentaries on any subject with this kind of narrative.

This decision has been made for several reasons, not the least of which is the internal belief that a first person narrative does not carry the same integrity and weight that an impartial one would. Take for example the spudWorks Night Out reprint from the New York Daily News.

The real question is about credibility however. When the writer is introduced into the piece, it carries with it an amount of baggage. Who is the writer? What are their values? Is that supposed to be funny? All of which are distracting from the actual point of the piece: The conveyance of a singular message.

While a conversation piece is okay, something along the lines of A New Column Every Week goes too far by introducing the "royal we" which is nothing more than a disguised version of the first person. A better version of this would be An Alien Nation Screenplay which is fine up until the editorial remark at the end. While funny, it is not necessary.

Much has been said about the columns written by President & CEO Colin Ferm, and while it is known internally that those pieces are ghost written by the staff, those fall outside of the rule being put into place. The reasoning behind its exception is that it is a personality piece where the writer has put themselves forward for examination by the reader. This differs from an editorial, both by a named writer and not, because it is usually a personal story and not written from an authoritative point of view. While this looks to be unimportant, it is not. Authority requires integrity, which the first person narrative does not provide.

Please take a few moments to give thought to the points above.

The Editors