Mike Moser "I Say" Published Oct. 10, 2003

Did published name cost her a job, or was it the crime?

The lady on the other end of the telephone conversation was polite, but she wanted someone to know the hurt that has been caused by the fallout stemming from her arrest and recent appearance in court.

She was fired.

Getting arrested was bad enough. Having to make multiple appearances in court followed and the bad experience culminated in her standing with drug dealers and users and offenders of lesser crimes in front of a judge in a courtroom full of people, admitting she was guilty.

The judge asked her personal questions that she felt were unrelated to her crime of drunk driving. She was asked her age, her level of education and her place of employment. And this information was published in the Crossville Chronicle.

She wanted to know why. That's a legitimate question and begs an answer. For that matter, why does the Chronicle publish any arrest or conviction in the newspaper?

For several reasons names of those who are arrested for certain offenses are published. We cull none despite what some might tell you. If we have access to the reports, those names are published.

There are times when we do not have access to all reports but those few occasions are not because someone, somewhere, wanted to withhold the information. Sometimes investigators are continuing to work on cases, seeking co-suspects or preparing their cases for court and if the detective pulls the report and it does not find its way back into the public folder file before the reporter arrives, the name escapes publication.

Those incidents are very few and far between. Besides, the names are always listed on the court docket. If the Chronicle was going to cull names from public scrutiny, I suspect we would start with our own families. But that is not the case. Nearly all of us at the Chronicle, including this writer and the publisher, have had the name of a family member published in the arrest reports and/or court docket.

We take great care to make sure the information is accurate, and considering the volume of police reports and court information published each week, that care shows. We realize that the truth is bad enough; there is no margin for error when it comes to a person's reputation.

As the county grows, we are finding more and more people who have the unfortunate experience of sharing the same name as someone who is arrested and whose name is in the newspaper. Providing information on age, address and work place does help distinguish one John Doe from the other.

So it comes down to this. Why do we do it?

We try to maintain simple rules. We publish all crimes that involve potential sentences of jail time. Not all of these incidents are crimes of the century but each and every one costs the taxpayers thousands of dollars. Taxpayer costs range from building and staffing the county jail, to paying police officers who make the arrests and investigate the incidents, equipping them, for public defenders and prosecutors to mediate or try the cases, the costs of court clerks, court officers, court reporters and in some cases, jurors.

Expert witnesses can cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars.

A seemingly harmless arrest of driving under the influence costs the taxpayers of this county hundreds of dollars.

All this is money that would be better spent on schools.

Secondly, the community has a right to know. Some may say we hide behind that credo to wreck people's lives but that is not true. People want to know if their children are exposed to danger from a multiple drunk driving offender, or want to know the man and woman living down the street cook methamphetamine or rob and steal.

As for publishing names for the sole purpose of selling papers, we have found that this is not true at face value. Our records show we sell just as many papers out of news stands on days when the court docket and arrest reports are published as we do when they are not.

I do believe we have a core of readers who subscribe because this information is part of our news package.

People are voyeurs at heart, and the Jerry Springer syndrome does exist. People like to know what bad things happen to other people. Good news newspapers historically have never been successful. Few survive.

We publish a grand mix of good news, news you need to know and news that exposes the bad things that happen to otherwise good people. Our readers tell us they like their news like this.

I doubt seriously publishing of the name cost her the job as much as pleading guilty to the offense. And contrary to what one might think, it is not a private matter since all of us have to pay for the indiscretions of a few.

And as is the way with human nature, we find most people read or scan the arrest reports and court docket and enjoy what they find published there ... until their name is published. Suddenly, reading the reports isn't fun anymore.

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Mike Moser is the editor of the Crossville Chronicle. His column is published periodically on Fridays.