A question-asker may initially choose to be anonymous because they're just interested in the answer and have no desire to be credited or involved. Some people are very private!

Sometimes you just can't get in touch with the question-asker. Someone may have purposefully or accidentally given contact information that's incorrect, they gave you an email address they rarely check, or they're on vacation. That's okay! That doesn't mean the question posed isn't worth pursuing.

Sometimes a person asks a question and chooses to be anonymous because they're blowing a whistle and could be at a risk for doing so. They may have valuable information to share with you that they couldn't go on the record with. When it comes to weighing how an anonymous question asker / source would affect a story, it's worth proceeding thoughtfully with your organization's editorial standards in mind.

If it's a matter of a question asker wanting to be anonymous for these reasons, we recommend referring to your organization's existing guidelines and your editor about dealing with any anonymous source. If an anonymous question-asker with vested interest could provide you information that you genuinely couldn't get from other on-the-record sources, then you can weigh the benefits or drawbacks of that as you normally would.

We recommend you make best efforts to get in touch, whether that's Googling to try to find another way to contact him / her or waiting a day or two to hear back if you get no response. Feel free to do the story, but just mention you could not get in touch with the person who was responsible for asking the question. You don't absolutely need a question-asker's involvement to do a story answering their question.  

Once you've chosen someone's question to go into a voting round, it's a great practice to get back in touch with the question asker to gauge how much they'd like to participate, anonymous or not. If they're anonymous, it is not a bad idea to circle back with them to double check they don't want to participate in the reporting process. Sometimes, people change their minds about staying anonymous once they realize you've chosen their question to pursue or that it's won a voting round!

If the person does want to remain anonymous after that double check, be sure to respect their need and desire to do so. Do not use any part of their identity or backstory if they're not okay with it (any part of their name, voice, etc.). Media outlets who do stories based on anonymous questions often just state in the article that the person who posed the question wants to remain anonymous. 

To make sure the Hearken process remains clear to your audience, we recommend still acknowledging that the story came from an audience member's question, even if the person opted to be anonymous. It can be as simple as stating "this question came from an anonymous [reader/listener/audience member]."