For the record …

If your name winds up in Bonner County's dispatch log, it's going to wind up in the Bonner County News of Record in The Daily Bee.

It's a hard and fast rule to which there is only one exception — confirmation from law enforcement that your name was mistakenly included in the log.

Despite various conspiracy theories, we don't decide which names get printed when somebody is ticketed or arrested for something.

The Daily Bee receives scores of morning-after phone calls from people begging us not to print their name for fear it will embarrass them, jeopardize their employment, humiliate their relatives or give their former spouse the upper hand in a child custody battle.

We sympathize with these concerns. But that doesn't mean we're going to cut deals with people.

We faithfully publish the contents of the dispatch log — the good, the bad and the ugly — in its entirety.

Some contend we delight in publicizing people's brushes with the law. Others accuse us of gleefully defaming them without due process.

But perhaps the biggest misconception is that The Daily Bee plays favorites in naming names. If you're connected or somebody important, we won't print your name, or so the rumor goes.

Certain public officials, business and community leaders, and even some of our past and present employees who wound up in the records would beg to differ, though.

However, we have discovered that some names are mysteriously absent from the record from time to time.

In our newsroom, there is a famous dispatch log omission involving a local business owner who was charged with drunken driving following a collision, but his name was left out of the record.

When we investigate such discrepancies, we are told names are listed at the discretion of law officers.

There is a potential upside to having your name in the police blotter. You can blame us for printing your name instead of taking responsibility for the conduct that put your name in the log.

? Keith Kinnaird is a reporter and news editor for the Daily Bee.