The phone rings. It's one of The Tribune's readers.
   "Who's the idiot who wrote the 'Our View' about Iraq?"
   Sir, we don't identify the authors of specific editorials.
   "Well, why not? What are you afraid of?"
   And so the explanation begins:
   Sir, editorials aren't signed because they don't represent the opinion of one person. They are the institutional opinion of the newspaper.
   "Oh, yeah? What the hell does that mean?"
   In practice, it means that editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Tribune's editorial writers, the editorial page editor and the publisher. In polite conversation, they are known as the editorial board.
   "How convenient. You attack people by name, but you hide behind anonymity."
   Guilty as charged. But again, sir, one writer drafts the editorial, but it doesn't represent just one person's views. The writer does the most to shape the piece, but it also often includes ideas of others on the editorial board.
   When there's a difference of opinion, Vern Anderson, the editor of the editorial page, assigns the editorial to the writer who knows most about the subject or who has made the most persuasive argument for the majority opinion in our meetings. Occasionally, a writer may be assigned to draft an editorial that he or she does not agree with,
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although that is rare.
   "Yeah, well, who has the final say?"
   A writer generally has about four hours to research and write a 450-word editorial. When the draft is finished, Anderson edits it, which means he has the final say about both substance and style.
   Ultimately, the buck stops with William Dean Singleton, The Tribune's publisher. He is one of the principal owners of MediaNews, the privately held company that owns The Tribune. As a matter of practice, Singleton does not often meet with the editorial board, and he gives Anderson and the writers considerable latitude to take positions. But he sets general guidelines, and, rarely, will determine a specific position on an issue.
   It's his newspaper, after all, and traditionally in American journalism, the editorial page represents the publisher's voice.
   "So who else is on the board?"
   Besides Anderson, the board includes three writers: me, George Pyle and Marilyn McKinnon. Malin Foster, who edits the letters to the editor, also contributes ideas, as does cartoonist Pat Bagley, when he's on his medication.
   They get together every morning to discuss issues that have been raised in The Tribune's news reporting. Anyone on the board can raise a topic, and they bat it around informally. Though writers specialize in some topics, at times it's a good idea to let a different writer take a fresh crack at an issue.
   The board also meets most days with public officials and interest groups that lobby the paper to support their side of an issue.
   The newspaper's reporters, and the editors who supervise them, do not participate in these meetings, or work on the editorial page. (They do attend meetings with visitors and sometimes write news stories about what the guests say about issues of public interest.)
   This arms-length relationship between the paper's reporters and opinion writers is by design. A reporter's job is to gather a fair and balanced account of an issue. An editorial writer's job, by contrast, is to take a position, to formulate an opinion.
   Reporters' objectivity probably would be compromised if they also were taking positions on the subjects they cover, so the reporting and opinion functions of the newspaper are assigned to different people. At The Washington Post, they call this the separation of church and state. It's an apt analogy.
   "That's fine, but I still think your editorial on Iraq was a lot of crap."
   That's your right. We don't expect our readers to agree with us on everything, and we know we sometimes take positions that, on further consideration, we wish we hadn't. We make mistakes, just like everybody else.
   We are most interested in provoking thoughtful examination of issues that affect Utah and its readers. If we've done that, we've done our job. Sometimes, being right is just a happy coincidence.
   "And a darn rare one. Bye."