We are not mistake-free

Many of you might have heard about one of our mistakes.\nEmployees from the IU Motor Pool cleaned out a rental car just before spring break and reported to the IU Police Department that they had found marijuana paraphernalia. The car was last rented out to the Indiana Daily Student.\nWhen we were told of this, we were thrust in an unusual situation -- how to report on news about ourselves. To remove ourselves from the situation, we tried to think about ourselves as a different but comparable University entity -- like the IU Student Association -- and tried to think of the staffer who drove the car as a different but comparable organization representative -- like an IUSA dorm representative. This scenario would help us to objectively report on the issue.\nWhen our police beat reporter, Audrie Garrison, called IUPD, as she does every day, she was unaware of the situation. We wanted to make sure she reported on the case as she would any other. When she talked to the police, they told her of their investigation, and she came to me with the information. \nWe told her to proceed with her story. If IUPD would have told us that a car IUSA last rented was found to have had drug paraphernalia, we would have contacted an IUSA representative, most likely its president. So Audrie interviewed me, and I told her our stance -- we were aware of the situation, and we would deal with it appropriately when a police report was filed.\nUltimately, IUPD chose not to file a report on our staffer. Now we were only left with how to handle any punishment.\nAfter discussing the matter with advisers -- the IDS managing editors, Kevin Dwire and Gavin Lesnick, and our director, Dave Adams -- we decided not to release the staffer in favor of a less harsh -- but probative -- penalty. We all feel this decision was the most appropriate action given the circumstances.\nThe IDS is a "real" newspaper, but it's also a learning lab. We work at the paper to learn from our mistakes, whether that means a botched story or a drug paraphernalia investigation. We want the staffer to know the situation will be dealt with much more severely the next time this happens, but with our faith in members of our newspaper family, we believe it will not happen again. \nOn behalf of the IDS, I apologize for this incident. Please have faith that we can learn from our mistakes.