On occasion, we get requests by people who run into trouble with the law to not have their names published in the listing of convictions.

Some people believe they own the right to whether their name can be printed. Others believe the newspaper lets people skip out of the listings on request. Once in a great while, someone offers to pay us to remove a name.

The fact is, the Tribune, like other newspapers, believes printing the convictions is a matter of public safety. These records are available for anyone in the public to inspect at the Freeborn County Courthouse. Putting them in the newspaper and online saves busy, hard-working, law-abiding people the time and effort it takes to go to the courthouse. As taxpayers who fund the law enforcement and courts, they deserve to know what is happening in their community. This is an aspect of society commonly explained in high school civics classes. If it’s not locally, it should be. Similar records are found in newspapers all across America.

The difference among the various newspapers is how they present it. Many draw a line above which they believe the community is interested, leaving the less important listings out.

The Tribune publishes all convictions that result in $125 or more in fines, jail time or both. We mean all. There is no middle ground. We don’t play favorites. No special favors. There is no good-ole-boys mentality. If someone gets a conviction, they are in print. The Tribune stands on the side of its readers as a whole, time and again.

By the way, as for owning the rights to names, the First Amendment doesn’t make an exception for names. Free speech and free press give us and everyone else freedoms to publish that we take with great responsibility and with American pride. That owning-the-name thinking often comes from young people, and they soon learn that in the adult world their name appears all over the place — property records, marriage, divorce, phone books, junk mail, even other places on the Internet from Facebook to athletic results. Who said your bank could sell a list of names and addresses to credit card companies? The First Amendment does.

Rest assured, we don’t print convictions to be vindictive or mean. We print them for the well-being of the community, not to shame anyone but to inform everyone. Newspapers are a leading form of adult education. The public has paid taxes to enforce laws. They deserve to see the results and then make decisions in life based on that knowledge.