When the person of interest in the Brown University shooting went free, multiple national news organizations scrambled to remove his name from published stories.

Too late. Life ruined.

For anyone who has ever been falsely accused in public or had an old misdeed or embarrassment that wound up in a news story, the internet can be a never-ending reminder. But sometimes a news organization will try to make an old skeleton disappear.

There’s probably no hope for the Brown University person of interest (because of online archiving and social media spread), but some news outlets have “right to be forgotten” policies that allow people to request removal of unflattering, long-ago stories about them from the outlet’s online library.  These policies emerged from well-intentioned thoughts about privacy and forgiveness, but they are nonetheless controversial.

A criminal conviction or an arrest, for examples, are standard fare for publication. Forever after, that article remains findable online — by employers considering the individual for hire, by neighbors in a new city of residence, by children who have grown older. It’s a harmful and inescapable mark.

Sometimes that mark is deserved. But some newsrooms have decided that sometimes it’s not. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun-Times and NOLA.com (New Orleans) are among the news websites with right-to-be-forgotten policies.

Despite a takedown request, editors might decide to leave the article and merely remove the individual’s name and photo. It’s also possible to “de-index” an article so search engines don’t find it.

Of course, this shouldn’t be an automatic decision. It shouldn’t be easy to erase a negative story that was once deemed newsworthy and valuable for the public to know. All right-to-be-forgotten policies have criteria, though they’re often subjective. The Plain Dealer, for example, won’t consider cases of violent crimes or that involve a public official or celebrity. The age of an article matters, too.

Right-to-be-forgotten policies reflect a measure of compassion for people seeking a second chance in life. But they also serve to (sort of) address some failures of typical journalism practices.

For one, many initial arrest stories represent a shallow, police version of events. For another, news media aren’t very good at following cases to their conclusion. If facts turn out differently than first reported, or charges get dropped, or a case ends in acquittal, there’s no certainty the absolution will get reported. Even a thorough job of updating earlier stories doesn’t undo potential damage to reputation like removal does.

I’d be remiss not to acknowledge the racial angle. Black males engage disproportionately with police and courts. Right-to-be-forgotten policies potentially benefit them the most. This assumes awareness of the policies, though. They lose much of their purpose if only individuals with media savvy or access to lawyers take advantage of them. They can’t be like the secret menus at fast-food places. News organizations must advertise them, even if it means dealing with more requests.

The right-to-be-forgotten principle is codified into law in Europe. Courts there have occasionally used it to compel unpublishing.

The voluntary programs among U.S. news media may spread as more organizations rethink crime coverage in general to focus more on public safety issues and less on complete reporting of the police blotter. Here’s a related idea, which should create fewer right-to-be-forgotten requests later: Except for serious crimes or high-profile suspects, withhold suspect names until conviction. And even for the highest-profile crimes, like Brown University, don’t publish the names of persons of interest unless law enforcement so requests to help with a search, or labels a detained person as a suspect, or arrests that person.

All of this goes against the habits and instincts of journalism. But the internet doesn’t recognize the notion of having paid one’s debt to society.

Tom Arenberg is an instructor of news media at the University of Alabama. He worked for The Birmingham News and the Alabama Media Group for 30 years. He published this commentary originally as a post on his blog, The Arenblog.

About News is a BirminghamWatch feature that publishes commentary by those who teach the craft and think about the values and performance of today’s journalism. BirminghamWatch shares links to About News articles on Facebook and invites readers to join the conversation there.