Girl, interrupted

I was disappointed to learn that Girl, author of the splendid Girl With A One-Track Mind whose book has recently been published, has been "unmasked" by a national newspaper. Disappointed, but not exactly surprised.

There was a certain depressing inevitability about it. A woman who writes anonymously and candidly about sex and her sex life and whose book has stirred up a lot of media interest? It was fairly obvious how the press would react. Her anonymity must have been like a red rag to a bull. It probably became something of a race, a matter of rivalry and pride - who could be the first to "name and shame" her? (The "winners" of the race will remain nameless here at least - not to preserve their anonymity but to avoid giving the toerags any more publicity.)

So, the race has been won, but what of Girl? From the high of being so highly thought of as to be published, to this. As she suggests in her own post on the subject, Girl's world has been profoundly shaken by the revelation. She's had to come clean to friends and family about the blog and the book, not because she's been "named and shamed" (she's not ashamed) but because of her explicit subject matter. And all for what? A fleeting moment of kudos amongst media types for the journalist and paper involved.

Of course, some bloggers will respond (and have responded) in that irritating "I told you so" voice that you shouldn't publish anything anonymously online that you wouldn't say in public normally. Which is bollocks, frankly. Anonymity online may be hard to preserve, but that's not to say it should be violated rather than respected. Girl wrote anonymously, deliberately giving away remarkably few personal details for a blog that was otherwise so candidly personal. She thereby implicitly requested that her right to anonymity be respected, and, until the book was published, it was. It's only the media's prurience that has led to this "unmasking" - the paper wasn't acting in the public interest. What does the general public care who wrote the book?

OK, so anonymity's not a legal right (unlike the right to privacy, which incidentally has very definitely been infringed in Girl's case), but it's a matter of principle. And, of course, principles are alien concepts to most journalists. (Scrupulousness? How quaint.)

The upshot of all this is that, for the sake of one trivial expose, Girl's life has been turned upside down and, on a selfish note, even if the blog continues it won't be the same again. A sad thought, and one that has me (and I imagine many others) wishing serious misfortune upon the journalist and paper in question.

Other bloggers' comments: Casino Avenue, Gordon McLean, Pete Ashton's Interweb Presence