SOME INSIST LOG NOT ENTIRELY FIT TO PRINT

Police Blotter Feature Making Waves

MADISON, Conn. - When protests erupt over news gathering, the usual
complaint is that someone printed fiction instead of fact, rumor rather
than truth. But not here.

In this boutique-size town, where stone fences and woods surround large
homes on Connecticut's southern shore, residents are condemning the local
newspaper for publishing what they believe is overkill of truth.

For the last three weeks, petitions have been circulating in Madison and a
neighboring town, Guilford, calling on the local government to force The
Shore Line Times, a small 123- year-old paper published twice weekly, to
stop printing its police blotter.

The blotter, which starts on Page 2, provides the name, age, address and
alleged offense of everyone arrested in Madison and Guilford in the
previous week.

To an outsider, the blotter seems as blandly innocuous as the paper's
weekly notices for the local arthritis support group. But to the 35,000
people who live in Madison and Guilford -- especially teen-agers, whose
names pile up in the blotter like driftwood on Madison's private beach --
Page 2 of the newspaper is an embarrassing record of who was arrested and
for what.

Mostly, the blotter is a record of petty crimes: underage liquor possession
and speeding tickets flecked with a burglary here, a felony drug offense
there.

"I just think it's about time they got rid of it," said Meaghan Egan, 16.
"It's a gossip column more than anything else.

"It could affect your reputation in many ways at work, in school."

The petitions, which sprouted anonymously a few weeks ago, demand that town
selectmen in Madison and Guilford force The Shore Line Times to halt
publishing the police blotter. About 200 residents have signed them,
endorsing the assertion that the blotter constitutes an "invasion of
privacy" and sparks "needless gossip" among residents.

Like police blotters in hundreds of other newspapers across the country,
the one published by The Shore Line Times is drawn from police files that
by law are open to public inspection. Unlike other community papers that
withhold the names of underage offenders and the exact addresses of those
charged with crimes, The Shore Line Times publishes all the details it can.

Elizabeth Young, the paper's editor, vowed to continue printing the police
log. "As much as there are people who don't like it, I think there are many
more people that do like it," she said.

"People like to call it gossip, but it does let you know what is happening
in town. It's not meant to hurt people."

Town officials acknowledge they have no authority to stop publication of
the blotter. But Madison's acting first selectman, Ron Piombino, said that
he would support an official resolution urging the paper "to really
exercise discretion" about what it prints. Like other residents interviewed
last week, Piombino has no problem reading about serious crimes. But, he
said, printing every teen-age beer or marijuana arrest, every
no-turn-on-red traffic ticket, every barking-dog citation "probably isn't
the most responsible way to act."

That people under 25 hate the blotter so much is no mystery; they commit
about a third of the alleged crimes in it, and they despise the inevitable
taunts from their friends or the wrath of their parents every Wednesday and
Saturday when the paper is published.