The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

WTBY MRE PRESSt WEDNESDAY NMARGH'30, 1988, PAGE 5 Earlier this month, Durham Regional Police charged 36 males with -indecents acts in a washroom in an Oshawa department store. Two newspapers - Whitby Flree Press and. the Oshawa Times - printed the names, ages, and, bometowls ofthose s'Ocbarged. > Other area weekly newspapers played the story just as* prominently, but did not list the names of those so charged. Whoisright? The an'swers are hlot simple. Before we get into the com- plexargùflents,,ltmesumrnariz'e theopposingvieWs: TO NAME: The onlY way to keep our court system fair to 'all is to kèeep ur court, systemn open to public scrutiny. In c ôse<d court system-, thosearbitrarily accused could end up rottinginprisôîwithoûtatrial.,: MOT *TO"NAME:* Publitation of names canresult in family break"p, ýloss of job, suicide - before the, ma tter càîmes to' trial. The curise of publicity bhits the innocent and guilty a1ike.ý Publication of namesshQiild wait until after conviction. .Between tbosé two extremes lie volumes of arguments. *An, example:, to combat -the "rotting in jail" argument, 1.many might.pointoutthat Canadian Law insists that ac- ,cuâed personsappear in court within, twenty-four hours of being charge4d no one islikely tobeforgotten injail. * Those-,whot 4Qargue ýshould remember the War-Measures Act of 1970, which suspeènded civil liberties and led to'the àrbtrary jailing of -hundreds - not one of whom was ever convicted of a crime.ý Worse, that event received over-- »whelmfiing public support -- wbich is when we need laWs to ,protect- our freedom most. public opinion is the worst tyranny ofaîl. The main counter argument to tbat lies in the way newspapers operate.,During tbe sixties I was editor of a small daily, newspaper. Our pollcy on court cases was clear:, we.publisbed tbe names of everyone convicted of every crime, and the names of most people wben they were cbarged. WITH OUR FEET UP by Bill Swan. WRONG DECISION No newspaper doas tbat today. There just isn't room, or interest. As a resuit, editors must be selective. Editors argue that the play a story is given -- whetber it appears on page one or page twenty nine or is spiked -- depends on the story's news value. Thus, those accused of some crimes- need - fear no publicity; others find their names on page one. Many argue that since "news value" is such an illusive quality, that either al,accused or none should be publisbed. And what is worth page one on a slow neWs day may be duried inside the papera month later; there are just too many variables. dWorse, editors are far more interested in arrests in "newsworthy" cases than tbey are in acquittaIs. Many people who had their names on page one when arrested find- no mention of their acquittal. Yet the stain of publicity remains. A few years ago a nurse at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto was charged with four murders after as many as Torontois,.not upholdi*ng bargain -Morgan The MetropolitanToronto Works .C onmnitee has notbeen upholding it~pat o te bargain with -2Pickering at the Brock West Landcfill site,. it was revealed -at Durbai Works Committee ~ ieting Truesday morning. .-Pickering councillor BeverleY . eýMorgan, associated with PACT,,a gr up investigating the areas of ..cegcern with Mletrob's 3andfilling oλ orations asserted thaîjMëtro is r ~Oliving up to ità,P~~ro~ bargamn. Metro was to crate 8 foot cells ,to cover daily and final cover of fiilshed areas. PACT bas obser- ved that often the cover was left off the garbage for up to tbree days, causing an odor te spread as far away as BayRdgs Regulation 309 of the Ministry of the Environment requires daily cover as well as final cover te, be applied by -a proper landfilling operation.% Radiation readings taken at the site bave indicated a hiigb lev.el, mucb higber tban is con ileed,-d sâfe. '1he background reding"s of' radliationin the site sbould be. no- Êigher* 'tban * 6-9 xicrorem accorcing te Ontario Hydro. The readings taken by PACT were from 34 to 87 microrem.. In otber words, a lot of 'radiation. AND-DÃ"N'T PAY UNTIL SEPTEMBER 1. 1988 *5 YEARWARRANTY* on one of the most quiet and efficient systems available. *FINANCINO BELOW PRIME Pay your account on September- lst., or finance at below bank prime ratel -**,-SPECIAL-EARLYORDER BONUS VOUR CHOICE 0F ONE 0F THESE PREMIUMS FREE AN3-PERSON BOAT is being released from this site that shouldn't be, probably due te radon gas, said Morgan.. The Ontario Department of Labour bas been contacted te investigate the situation. The max.imum exposure for a year is 500 millirem, and apparently it would only take a full year 'of residence on the site to get the maximum exposure. This site 'is not licensed for radioactive material, and Metrô is to prevent this material from getting to, the site, said Morgan. It bas also- been reported that SEEI PAGE 14 EXCLU SIVE BUT, NOT EXPENSIVE... à5 childrefl ha d died in mysteriolis*circumlstalces. Before the case ever fot to the hearing ýitage, newspapers had a field day. the nurse and her fhmlly were mirtually. under- press siege;. many complained of the violation of her, privacy. But when the case came before the courts -.in .a preliminary hearing - it was throwniout. The police,ý in a hurryteosolve the murders, had no case. One can argue that the glare of publicity became part of the force that freed Susan Nelles; that inthe end, it was thé police v'ho were on trial. But the police officers who blew this case did not become household names. Susan Nelles can neyer fully leave behind the professional and personal stains the accusations caused. One can think of no crime worse than the murder- of in- nocent children. But praise the Lord we are sucha repressed people that any crime that involves sex, sets us to salivating. Our laws recognize this, for example, in a rape case; the name of the victim shallot be published. We do this in no other area, and we make the change in case of rape for good reason. A few years ago, police in St. Catharines raided a public washroom and made a number of arrests. The night before the names of the accused were to appear in the local daily newspaper, one of the accused comnitted suicide.. The "crimés" involved at. the washroom on the Bay in Oshawa may even seem humorous to those not involved. And at wo rst they have a ring ofsadness; undoubtedly, otherwise sound, committed family men have been named; quite possibly a few innocent people have been caugbt in the net. By publishing the names, newspapers have handed out worse punisbment tbat the courts will ever impose. .Being an armchair quarterback is easy, and on purpose I' have not discussed this issue with the editors involved. I am sure each bas bis own sounid professional reasons for bis decisions.I just happen to think tha t that -decision was, wrong..