Handling rumors of school violence

Journalists and school administrators can agree about this: No situation is more vexing to handle than matters of school violence or rumors of school violence. Once people's children are involved, the stakes get higher. And everyone's passion and intensity magnifies.

Newspapers generally try to be careful with these stories. Our reporters frequently get tips and questions about bomb threats, hit lists and all manner of other potentially violent acts in schools. We often don't report these stories, because they turn out to be unfounded, and the perpetrators don't need any encouragement from the news media.

However, each situation has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. I wish news judgments were black and white, but the difficult ones never are.

I think we made the right decision today to write about threats -- or, to be more precise, the fear of threats that might lead to violence -- at Grant County and Conner high schools, because rumors had gotten so out of hand that we had a role to play in rumor control. In both cases, it appears school officials and law enforcement did an excellent job of getting to the bottom of these situations. Plus, news is defined in part as what interests people. I can tell you that there was no topic of more urgent interest in the Hebron-Burlington area yesterday than what was up at Conner High.

I should disclose that I'm also speaking here as the parent of a Conner student, and I hope the Boone County school officials -- good people doing a tough job -- review how communication was handled. I learned details that I needed to know as a parent in this morning's paper, and the detail and candor were helpful. However, mixed messages and lack of official information sparked more angst than necessary for two days. Thus, a lot of parents kept their kids at home. In this Internet/text message age, where rumors spread even faster than facts, rapid response time from officials is critical.