Letter to the Karin Wahl-Jorgensen

Dear Karin Wahl-Jorgensen,

I read your book "Journalists and the Public" and one section confused me. You talk about pen names quite a bit, and you actually give percentages in reference to how many letter writers used assumed names. One example was on page 43, lines 31-32, when you wrote "Pederson found that at least 30% of female letter writers use assumed names". How could we know the percentage that used pen names? Were the writers adding a note that the letter should be published under a different name? I assume most writers who use a pen name, just use the pen name, period. Why would they give their actual name at all? How would the newspapers, in the those times, know whether or not the names on the letters were the writer's real names? I just can't imagine that Pederson's research on this point could even be remotely accurate.

Sincerely

Justin Cohen