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We get a lot of questions about our handling of crime reporting. Some readers ask why we choose to put a student’s name in a crime story. Some ask why we hold names out of the crime report. There are a few factors that go into crime stories and when we decide it is newsworthy to report the name of a student.

Each newspaper has its own policy on reporting on crime. The Hatchet never had a clear-cut policy until last year, where our editorial staff sat down and discussed the merits of naming names. The argument arose from this story, a story I reported as the paper’s sports editor about a water polo player arrested on marijuana charges. After dissent arose around the newsroom, I called journalism experts who all concurred that it is The Hatchet’s obligation to report on charges filed with the Metropolitan Police Department. I spoke to the standards editor at The New York Times, other college newspaper editors and ethics experts at the Poynter Institute. After that, the staff decided that it would name students involved in crimes if they are arrested by MPD. In that case, the arrest records are public information and pertinent to the student body.

It is The Hatchet’s obligation to serve as a running history, a chronicle, of GW, and thus covering crime is important. The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University’s daily newspaper, has a wonderful column that encapsulates most of our feelings on the issue of naming names. I stumbled across this after our policy was created last year. When students complain that their name will be forever linked to this crime because of a news report, many forget that the records The Hatchet used will likely be used by future employers as well.

We have a different policy when it comes to crime that is handled by the University Police Department. UPD records are sealed and not available for public consumption. UPD is required, by federal law, to release a crime log in a timely manner. It does so, but does not include names. Generally, The Hatchet will not report names of campus crime that stays within campus police.