If we could do it over again...

 Editors make a hundred decisions every day — some small and some large. Sometimes those decisions are right, in which case we might get a thank you from the public. Sometimes those decisions are wrong, in which case you might see a correction the next day. And sometimes they are decisions which are neither right nor wrong, but which give us heartache for a variety of reasons.

We had a case like that last weekend when we ran a story about the termination hearing for a shop teacher in the Bigfork school district who had been involved in an altercation with a student.

I won’t rehash the details of the story here, but the significant point is that the teacher waived his right of privacy and asked for the hearing to be held in public. He did so, no doubt, because he thought that the public would be on his side.

But what complicated the matter is that the student involved in the altercation DID NOT waive his right to privacy at the hearing and did not even attend the hearing because it was not in any way about him. He probably thought the public would be on his side, too.

As it turned out, the student’s name was used in the hearing several times — first by the union representative defending the teacher and then by several other people who gave testimony.

From what I understand, the superintendent of the school district as well as the chair of the board of trustees explained after the name was mentioned that the student had not waived his right to privacy. Apparently, the newspaper reporters present were asked not to use the name.

That put the reporter in a peculiar position. Reporters are generally trained to uncover information, and to use whatever information they acquire through public means as part of their reporting. In this case, the reporter acquired the name both at the hearing and from other sources, and an Inter Lake editor decided in favor of using the name in an early version of the story.

Although the name was acquired legitimately, we now regret the decision to publish it for a couple of reasons.

First, the student was not present and did not get to tell his side of the story. Because the student had not waived his right to privacy, his own testimony was taken by the board in closed session. The Inter Lake had not heard both sides of the story. That should have raised the red flag of fairness. Since the teacher and his supporters had some negative things to say about the student, he should have had a chance to respond.

But, in addition, the student was actually considered the victim of the incident and had reported the teacher’s behavior to the school principal immediately after it happened. The superintendent, who investigated the incident, recommended that the teacher should be fired. There was no reason, going into the hearing, to think that the student had done anything wrong. Certainly, the school district did not take action against him, but against the teacher.

For this reason alone, we think we should not have used the student’s name, as it became easy to shift blame to him when he was actually the “whistleblower,” not the suspect.

I am not using his name here in this column either, even though I would like to, because from what I can tell, he is a fine, upstanding student and a credit to his community. He is an honors student, a volunteer in several endeavors, a mentor to his fellow students and a superb athlete.

But we aren’t going to use his name again because there are some people out there who (for whatever reason) will twist the facts, blame the victim and resort to name-calling and personal attacks.

We at the Inter Lake have to make judgment calls every day as guardians of the public’s right to know. In this case, if we had it to do over again, we would have made a different call.