Privacy puts limits on good-news coverage

How careful is too careful?

In these times, it's hard to tell.

Last week, I was invited to Prairie View Elementary's mock presidential election.

Organized and run by the Elgin school's fifth grade classes, participating students collected ballots from one station, voted in sectioned-off booths, then dropped their ballots in boxes, receiving "I voted" stickers afterward.

To see tiny kindergarten and first-grade students solemnly marching toward the miniature voting booths, and furrowing their brows as they chose between candidates was adorable. And heartwarming.

And from a journalist's perspective that day, a little confusing.

The school this year instituted a policy where students are only allowed to be identified by their first names in the press, a fact I first learned when I showed up to cover the election.

"Once something's on the Internet, it stays on the Internet," Principal Jim Prather explained to me.

"We have to be careful."

Prather's got a point.

The first time I met State Government Editor John Patterson last year, he asked me how the Capitol's bathrooms stacked up.

"Would you give them four flushes? Three?" he asked.

I was completely baffled as to what this guy was talking about.

Then it hit me.

As a columnist in college, I once rated campus bathrooms by "flushes" for Villanova's student newspaper.

At the time, it was amusing. Years later, thoroughly embarrassing.

But I can't get it back. It's something I wrote, and thanks to the Internet, it's out there forever.

From a much more serious perspective, Prairie View is also dealing with those concerns. Officials like Prather are aiming to prevent child predators from gathering information about their students in things like newspaper articles and pictures.

I get it. But at the same time I know dozens of parents who cherish newspaper clipping of school events - like mock elections - that their children participated in.

It's unlikely that newspapers are going to change their policy requiring first and last names of sources anytime in the near future.

Which puts us - and schools like Prairie View - in a sticky situation.

They've got newsworthy events that we want to cover.

But in technologically dangerous times, it's hard to see just what's too careful.

Hello Mr. Roboto: Bartlett High School will host the annual Illinois BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology) robotics competition at 9:30 a.m. Nov. 8.

There are eleven different teams from the tri-state area competing. In conjunction with the competition, the school is hosting a 10 a.m. college and career expo with representatives from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Bradley University, Augustana University, Southern Illinois University, and several other schools. For details, visit www.bestinc.org.