CoPress

Here's the simple solution:

Don't delete anything. Ever.

We get these requests every day. Sometimes it's people who show up in the police logs and don't want their potential bosses to know they got caught with pot when they were 19. Sometimes it's people who wrote articles who are embarrassed by their old views. We always say no, and have gone so far as to restore articles that were at one point deleted by employees not following the policy.

If it's something in a police log, that will show up on a background check no matter what. It's public information, and as long as it was correct at the time it was published you have absolutely no responsibility to do anything. For felonies (not misdemeanors) we can attach a note to the end of the article saying charges were cleared if we did not write a followup and the person brings in court documents showing as such.

If it's something people wrote, that's their bad luck. A newspaper needs to stand by everything it publishes. Correct errors quickly, but be transparent about it — attach a note to the end of an article if you corrected something. Never delete anything.

If you're having problems with your conscience, think of it this way: If the person deserves the job they're applying for, a brief about them getting busted for possession shouldn't be in the first 1,000 Google results, and if they're really qualified for the job the employer shouldn't even care.

Andrew-

I would not even go so far as to extend that courtesy. The integrety of your archives is paramount. The writers knew they were writing for a newspaper and that it would be published. Whether it's published in print or on the Web is a moot point.

I like the idea of posting the policy online. Very transparent.

Chris, I'm very much in the camp that you shouldn't take anything off the web unless it's inaccurate. It's rewriting history to some degree. Your question did bring up an interesting thought in my mind, however, that I'd love to get gut reactions to. What if, instead of deleting the article or content altogether, you just de-indexed it from Google? You could even leave it in your site's search engine; it's just that removing it from Google might keep the embarrassing article from showing up on the first page of results. Would that be ethical, do you think?

In the end, it's easiest to have a simple policy with a clear line. Remember: It's not your fault people did or wrote this, and you don't have any obligation to them. You should be working to expand access to all your archives, not working to decrease access to a few parts of it.