WINONA, Minn. – The Winona Post revised its policy on crime news. People who have been in trouble with the law now may request that their names be stricken from online stories after five years. Chris Rogers, editor, said there are exceptions:
> Felony offenses.
> Violent offenses, sexual harassment, and sexual misconduct.
> Government officials and public figures.
Rogers said low-level offenses can stigmatize an offender for years and serve no purpose. “The shame,” he said, “can be worse than their actual sentences.”
Comment: Sanctimonious gesture
The Post decision is a pointless outlier in traditional journalistic commitment to creating an accurate and enduring record. Anyone doing a background check on a person has countless tools to do so besides a news site. With rare exception, offenses remain publicly accessible in court documents. Many online search engines like SeekVerify and Intelius have exhaustive information on an individual’s scrapes with the law. Too, there is no way that print editions of the Post can be purged. They’re archived in libraries. No librarian, committed as they are against book-burning, would ever blot out a single word. The broader issue is whether the Post, by acceding to self-serving censorship, is on the road to surrendering the journalistic autonomy on which reader trust is built.