No author, it doesn't matter

Ernest Hemingway's notebook for his book "Green Hills of Africa," at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. Paul Marotta (Getty Images)

Transcended and

are modes of news production.

Problematic resources, since the reader is not in a position to decide how much he is going to believe of the transcendence, precisely because of the anonymity of the source.

Undoubtedly, the secrecy of the source makes it possible to collect embarrassing, compromising or threatening data for an informant whose identity must be preserved from justice, jail, revenge or death.

The secrecy of the source is a last instance, when the news has been surrounded, by its very nature, by an impassable curtain except for the

who offers (for whatever reason) to speak to the journalist.

We are used to reading testimonies from unknown witnesses who, therefore, only have the certificate of hypothetical truth given by a reliable journalist.

Let's imagine that the author or the author is deleted from the new novels that are published.

Much of what we would read under these conditions would suggest questions that are as immediate as they are difficult to answer: who invented this? Where did they harvest it?

These are not minor questions, because knowing who said it is accessing an instrument that gives us minimal conditions to assess whether we will grant him the trust that produces acceptable credibility or if we are going to deny him because he is someone who seems unworthy of that trust.

Books without authors.

Let us imagine that, to quote a classic of the classics, some chapters of

omitting the names of its two main characters.

Or that a novel like Virginia Woolf

was printed without reference to its author.

Let us imagine that the poems of Pessoa and those of Saint-John Perse were brought together in the same volume, translated into Spanish, without mentioning either the author of the versions or the year of original publication.

Imagine that some of Hemingway's notes were mixed with others of the almost equally adept journalism that competed with him in newspapers and magazines.

Let us imagine, this would be the end, that

(under another name) appeared without an author, along with other sentimental and dramatic novels that are not excellent, but resemble Flaubert's in themes, length, and vicissitudes.

Let us imagine that Sartre's essays were extracted from

and they were heaped into one volume, mixed with those of many intelligent and able imitators who followed him around the world.

Let's imagine a cataract of Latin American magical realism books, without authorial mention or year of publication.

A similar test could be done with the anonymity of followers of German expressionism, French impressionism, or the various pictorial costumbrisms that emerged after Goya.

Only the most expert eyes could decipher such a hodgepodge.

The same can be said for Mozartian music written after Mozart, or the gravelly tone of imitations that follow Beethoven on the darker side and fool untrained listeners.

concert

that goes from Schönberg to Alban Berg?

How many recognize the poems that inspired romantic songs?

Surely these questions do not reach unsigned journalism, because, as the aforementioned French essayist would say, one reads quickly and one reads poorly.

A few days ago, while waiting for my turn in an office, I finished reading the newspaper.

The wait was long and I was not left without browsing even the property sales notices.

I looked around and offered it to a middle-aged lady who was also waiting.

She thanked me politely, but she declined.

I asked her if she wasn't interested in newspapers.

She answered me what I deserved for improvising those surveys: “They all say the same thing”.

I know that this is not true, but I did not insist and went on to another question, because I am indiscreetly curious when I talk to strangers: “How do you find out what is happening?”

The lady replied with undaunted confidence: "Everyone knows."

I was about to ask him about television, but I refrained there.

The lady had given me an answer that needed no author, no source, no proper name signing the news.

Newspaper editors know or sense it.

If the news began circulating anonymously centuries ago, and continued anonymously or under a pseudonym to avoid persecution, today it can be anonymous because perhaps only the names of those who shine in other areas are worth: great prizes and audiovisual media, beautiful women or participants who are encouraged to be aggressive and manage to be very funny.

Today the signature is a body, the grimaces of the face, the shouts or the easy jokes, the style of the clothes and the hairstyle.

As I am not nostalgic, I look at this panorama and say to myself: all the better, because it is always interesting that things change.

Contemporary fame has no rules and in the face of this democratic anomie we can all be famous.

Only the stroke of luck is essential.

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