After our decision to publish the DUI conviction for a SGA presidential contender, we received an overwhelming response. Many of you left us your comments on the Web site. Others e-mailed us. And what struck me most is that some of the readers believe that the newspaper doesn’t care about the students.

I can honestly say I have never lost so much sleep over an issue. Trust me, it takes a toll on journalists to write about things of this nature. It is never fun to hurt someone. It brings us no joy knowing that someone is embarrassed. But it’s not our job to decide what is published based on our emotions. The question needs to be: Does the public have a right to know this?

Yes, I believe the voting public of USD has a right to know that a presidential candidate (although Colon has since dropped out of the race) got in trouble with the law. If it was a state senator that got a DUI, he or she would be in the news, and rightfully so. If you want to be in public office, expect more scrutiny. If someone is going to vote for you to spend their money and make choices for you, you should know something about their character and how they represent themselves.

But despite the fact that I still believe the article is valid, I want to emphasize the point that making these choices of what should run is not easy. USD is a small campus. You get to know people, and you never want to hurt them. Unfortunately, one of the pains of journalism is that we report not only the good news, but the bad. It is our job to inform and to educate, and sometimes that means being the bearer of bad news.

I won’t apologize for running the article, because I believe we have a responsibility to the students to provide them with information. But believe me when I say that it is times like these, when you know that an article you ran hurt someone, that it is tough to be a journalist.