news-record.com

When we began publishing the break-in map, a few readers wrote in requesting we publish a list of everyone arrested each week, too.

In the trade, that’s called a crime blotter. Lots of newspapers publish them.

We don’t.

We know that arrests are public information, and a list of them every week would certainly be well-read. That’s the allure of crime blotters.

I see the delicious gossipy value of being able to read the names of everyone arrested. Problem is, I don’t see any public service value of publishing a list of them in the newspaper. And, out of fairness, if we write about a person’s arrest, don’t we have an obligation to write about the disposition of his case? Some of these folks are acquitted, after all. We have a hard enough time trying to keep up with arrests we do publish. Doing it for the dozens of arrests made each week would strain a staff the size of the New York Times, much less ours.

I know we publish "Guilford County's Most Wanted," which some may say is the same thing. I consider it different. Those are folks who law enforcement officers are looking for.

If you're interested, the Greensboro Police Department provides a nifty service online. Browsing through a few days certainly gives you an idea of how the police department must spend its time. Sad, really.