The Boston Globe’s Fresh Start Initiative

Clearing the history is dicey - internet doesn’t easily forget even when the NYT does. I believe it’s the NYT responsibility to not just report facts but to keep track of the externalities and put on work to repair them. In this case they could rewrite the article - still include the original but frame it with the context, the resolution (charges dropped), the layman explanation of resolution, etc.

You'll still be able to find the old article on archive.org et al, but what a paper publishes today should reflect what it stands for today. If the paper was wrong or unfair, what is wrong with modifying or removing the coverage which is served today? Is that really worse than printing a "correction" paragraph at the end of the original article?

Maybe publishers could implement a sort of "timeline" feature which shows how the organization's understanding of an event changed over time. But today, I can't see anything wrong with a newspaper accepting petitions to modify outdated coverage.

"... That as a matter of law, the truth is irrelevant. We have no knowledge the story is false, therefore we're absent malice. We've been both reasonable and prudent, therefore we're not negligent. We may say whatever we like about Mr. Gallagher, and he is powerless to do us harm. Democracy is served."

When volunteering at a high school, my police record check amounted to the "NO" box being checked for, "did the police find any reason to believe this individual would be a risk to vulnerable groups (elderly, children, disabled)?"

That being said, a lot of criminal proceedings are public record, I think? With a PACER account I can look up a pretty wild amount of stuff.

But let's say you're an independent plumber. There's a good chance that someone is going to google your name to see if you pop up on a review site or something similar as part of their standard, low-level vetting process. If the third hit is an article about you being involved in an out-of-character drunken bar fight years ago, it could really affect your business.

How many run-of-the-mill established professionals are subject to a CORI check? I'd guess less than half. How many are the subject of pre-hire, out-of-curiosity google searches? I'd guess most.

Also, old cases can be expunged or sealed by the court, if found appropriate. Your local newspaper, without a deliberate initiative like this, is unlikely update their archives even if you were completely cleared of involvement in a grisly crime for which you were a "person of interest."

Hell, even dating could be an issue.

Their initiative said it wasn't fair that well-heeled white professionals who could enlist the help of lawyers were far more likely to get that article about some drunk driving incident taken down while it was impossible for poorer people to do the same.