The expungement of a person’s criminal record is meant to provide a fresh start to individuals whose criminal arrest or charges have been removed by the court from public view.

Illinois law spells out the goal of an expungement: “The effect of an order of expungement shall be to restore the person to the status he or she occupied before the arrest, charge or conviction.”

It’s hard to reach that goal when news stories exist that contains details of an arrest and conviction that has been dismissed or vacated by the court.  While the media has First Amendment protections to publish truthful information, there is no requirement to remove that information after an expungement or dismissal changes the outcome of the story.

During my years as a reporter, there were times when a person who was the subject of a story based on a police report or a criminal case would come to me and request removal of the information from the outlet’s archives after an expungement. The reasons for the requests varied but most were made as the person applied for a new job, housing or other life advancement made difficult by a new story that now shared unreliable information.

In most cases, after discussions with editors, the information was removed.  The decision, although not mandated, made good sense from an ethics standpoint.  Such discussions on what is sometimes known as the right to be forgotten are becoming more common in newsrooms across the country as the internet becomes the top source of information for employers and others. At the very least, a statement that the charges against the person have been vacated would be an important update to old and now damaging news stories.

There are other options people could explore, such as a request for deindexing, or removing the story from Google search results.

We must acknowledge that the digital age holds the potential to damage people’s lives, and the news media holds significant power to repair some of that damage by ensuring that the rest of the story is told. It’s the right thing to do.