RoselynnWaldman

I am totally flabbergasted with the Beacon policy of identifying people’s names by referring to them by either a surname or a Christian name.

For example: My name is Roselynn Waldman. If I have an article using my name, it is the Beacon’s policy, after using my name as above, that any following referrals are my surname.

I totally do not go by my surname alone. I totally deserve respect to be identified as either Roselynn (my birth name) or Roselynn Waldman (my legal name).

I think that it is disrespectful, bad manners and totally insulting.

How would you like to be referred by your surname only?

A name was given to us by our parent, chosen with thought and love.

To have it bastardised by a publication is not acceptable.

■ The editor responds:

For many years the Beacon style was to use honorifics, but this year we dropped the Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss and Mx in line with most other New Zealand publications.

We already used surnames after the first mention in arts, sport and court so this style standardises stories throughout the paper.

It is something that larger newspapers around the country, along with other community papers, have been doing for years and should not be unfamiliar to regular readers of newspapers and online publications.

We do not consider it disrespectful, bad manners or insulting and hope the majority of our readers accept it simply as our style, and do not read too much into it.

Other options would have been to continue with honorifics, which were proving problematic with many people seeing them as old fashioned and not wanting to be labelled this way.

Using first names would work if we were a soft, fluffy, lifestyle publication but we do consider ourselves a “news” paper, albeit with a community focus.

Referring to mayors, councillors, judges, lawyers, politicians and others by their first names would, in our opinion, be too familiar, informal and disrespectful.

It is impossible to please everyone so we have opted for the same style as others in our industry.