We launched ‘Clean Slate’ to review past stories. Here’s what we have done so far

Three years ago, Sacramento Bee journalists made a commitment through our “Clean Slate” initiative to rectify some of the ongoing harms caused by past reporting. We recognized that as reporters, we had sometimes failed the very same people who were failed by the criminal justice system.

We wanted to take a look at The Bee’s past and see what we could do to correct those mistakes. As we state on the site, it’s “an effort to re-examine some older news stories about incidents, minor criminal offenses or cases that ultimately were dismissed but still live on in the digital world, sometimes making it difficult for the subjects to find jobs or move on with their lives. We’re not erasing the historical record, but we are updating it.”

The Bee’s Clean Slate initiative is our continuing effort to bring older stories in line with our current ethical standards. We wanted to give people the opportunity to describe how our work had affected them, to provide context that we missed, and to tell us how we might change the stories now to mitigate their effects.

In 2022, a committee of journalists created a formal application process through which people can tell us their own stories and ask us to take some concrete steps, including removing names or photos from articles and making them harder to find on Google. We are always accepting applications, and have posted guidelines for those interested on our website.

Reporters, visual journalists and editors regularly review applications and weigh appropriate actions. Now, we want to give our readers an update on our progress, and let you know what we’ve accomplished in these past three years.

An update

In response to requests from people directly affected — usually the subjects themselves — individual staffers have re-reported stories, not for publication, but to determine whether we made the right call in our prior coverage. Reporters have then presented what they learned to a panel of fellow journalists who collectively decided what, if any, action to take on the stories people brought to our attention.

We used to write about relatively minor crimes allegedly committed by people who were not public figures. We did not always follow up on those stories, missing new developments — including when charges were lowered or dismissed, or when defendants were found innocent.

Many applicants who have written to us since 2022 have sought the total removal of the stories in question, an action we have not yet taken as we balanced our commitment to a complete public record against the hardship that record can cause.

Still, in 11 cases, we reviewed our work and concluded we would not have written about the topic in the same way — or at all — if the alleged crime happened now.

With the approval of executive editor Colleen McCain Nelson (one of three top editors at The Bee who join us for our meetings), we altered seven stories. In some cases, we simply removed subjects’ names from stories about minor alleged crimes. We removed photos of the subjects from a few stories, in accordance with our current editorial standards around mugshots. In five of the 11 cases, we changed internal settings on stories such that they will no longer appear in Google searches.

What have we done with these old stories?

The last three years have been busy for the Clean Slate committee, and we often consider a wide variety of requests.

In one case, an applicant was arrested as a young person and was not a public figure. He explained that he had been arrested while in possession of a relatively small quantity of illicit drugs. The Bee wrote a story about the arrest at that time that named him, and it remained available on our website for several years, alongside his mugshot.

He is drug-free today, but the story The Bee had written prevented him from getting jobs. He also told us the existence of the story had persuaded certain people not to associate with him.

In that case, The Bee’s Clean Slate committee decided to remove the story from Google searches.

In another case, a young man who no longer lives in California reached out to the committee for review of a story detailing his arrest about a decade ago in the Sacramento region. The story and his mugshot had followed him to his new home, and he said it regularly created social and employment problems for him. After a reporter reviewed court documents and conducted interviews with the man, his lawyer and a county prosecutor, she presented her findings to the committee. We decided that the allegations against him had reliably been proven false.

His case was the first story the Clean Slate committee decided to de-index fully, so that the story will no longer appear in search engine queries for his name.

However, we have not always agreed with the applicants. In 12 cases, we have chosen to leave the stories as they are.

We chose to take no action on our story about the arrest of a man who was accused of sex crimes. Though we did not follow up on the case as it unfolded, our reporter learned during a trip to the criminal courthouse last year that the subject was later convicted. Although we now generally avoid publishing mugshots in the early stages of a criminal case, given the man’s later conviction, we left his mugshot intact.

Another person asked us to remove two stories about a robbery and assault case that had spawned an ongoing lawsuit. The committee ultimately decided to remove the man’s photo from one of the stories to bring it in line with our now more-stringent standards regarding mugshots. But we decided to leave the stories on our website with his name in them, in light of his decision to pursue charges relating to the incidents.

These are just some of the applications we have carefully considered. We take every request seriously, and we consider it a privilege to be able to redress some of the pain we have caused.

If you, or someone you know, has been affected by previous reporting done at The Bee, we encourage you to apply for a review. Together, we can make our community better and stronger. Sometimes all it takes is a clean slate.