They are the calls that break your heart, almost always asking for something I cannot do.

Here's a typical one.

"Look, Mr. Pollak, I've never called a newspaper before, but I've been talking to the police and they told me that I should call you.

"You see, the cops pulled my wife over last night and charged her with DUI. If her name appears in the newspaper's arrest report for drunk driving, she's going to lose her job and that means we won't be able to keep up the payments on our house.

"We have small children and I can't bear the idea of them seeing their mother's name in the arrest report and getting teased about it in school.

"Can't you please see it in your heart to leave her name out of the paper?"

Sadly, my answer always has to be "no."

Believe me, there are many times when I wish I could say "yes," but I never do. Most of the cops at area police stations know this and don't give people false hope by telling them to call me. However, sometimes an inexperienced police officer sends them my way.

Contrary to some popular belief, editors don't have hearts of stone. There are valid reasons why exceptions can't be made in reporting what's on the police blotter.

The arrest report is news. The public does have a right to know what the police (we pay with our taxes) are doing. It is the newspaper's responsibility to report it.

We're fortunate we don't live under a totalitarian regime where arrests are secret and citizens disappear without any accounting by the government. There are many places around the world where the populace would welcome an arrest report in an independent newspaper.

For one thing, omitting a name because someone called the newspaper would be unfair to all those named in the arrest report who didn't call.

Further, once we start making exceptions, it's a terribly slippery slope, and the public would rightfully lose faith in the newspaper's fairness, completeness and accuracy.

There's another thing. What if we didn't print the name of that woman arrested for DUI, and — heaven forbid — she gets drunk a couple of months later and kills a child in a car accident?

I don't want that on my conscience.

The reports also include all those college students arrested for underage drinking or other violations of the law.

I have three college-age daughters and a son in high school, and I'm frequently asked whether it would get into the paper if one of my kids was arrested.

Absolutely, positively, definitely.

No exceptions.

Of course, their names in an arrest report would be the least of their problems once their mother and I found out about their alleged misdeeds.

Now, about that word "alleged."

An arrest report is only that — arrests, not convictions. If someone is exonerated after appearing in an arrest report, we very much want to print that, too.

Some police and sheriff's departments give out the names of 16-year-olds they arrest. Some don't, even for 18-year-olds. The Daily Star will print the names as they appear in the police blotters because they are public knowledge.

Is it fair to print the names of some 16-year-olds and not others? Perhaps not, but achieving uniformity is a matter for the various police departments. If a name is released, we print it.

At a recent speaking engagement, I was asked why the newspaper has to print arrest reports at all. It was a good question and a point of discussion whenever newspaper editors meet and talk about our products.

A very few have stopped printing them, preferring to just publish convictions. However, most continue to run arrest reports because in the end, the people do have a right to know what is going on in their communities.

And that's what newspapers do. We tell people stuff.

Questions from readers are more than welcome. Write Sam Pollak at P.O. Box 250. Oneonta, NY 13820 or e-mail to him at

spollak@thedailystar.com.