One of my toughest moments to date as the Daily’s editor in chief happened yesterday.

An old friend stopped by the office to see me. I hadn’t seen him for about a year, but I knew right away that this wasn’t a social call.

My friend had been arrested over the weekend for a crime he says he didn’t commit. And I believe him. I have never known him to be violent, and I have never known him to be involved in anything remotely criminal.

Yesterday he came to me for help. He knew that the Daily would probably publish his name in the police blotter, and he wanted to see if there was anything I could do to stop it.

My answer to him was no.

As far as my friend was concerned, I had to treat his name and his situation as if I didn’t know who he was. I tried to explain to him that for better or worse, I had a journalistic obligation to uphold. I had to treat him like I would treat anyone — including myself — in this situation.

Yet it wasn’t easy for him to accept. And it wasn’t easy for me tell him this.

This was the same friend who, during the Veishea riots in 1992, saved me a trip to the emergency room when he pulled me out of the middle of an angry group of rioters who were taking turns punching and kicking me.

This was same friend who threw a surprise birthday party for me when I turned 19.

And this was the same friend who once introduced me to a woman that I ended up dating for two years.

And yesterday I had to look him in the eyes and tell him that I was sorry, but my newspaper would run his name and consequently bring his good reputation to doubt.

I’ve spent a lot of time since then thinking about why we run police blotters every week.

And the answers I came up with are these: First off, the information is open to the public. Anyone can wander in to the police station and ask to see the arrest logs.

Secondly, the Daily’s philosophy — along with many other newspapers’ philosophies — is that the information is newsworthy. In general, the public wants to know and has the right to know the basic information surrounding an arrest in its community. This basic information would include the name of the person arrested, what that person was arrested for and where that person was arrested.

Police blotters also expose certain social trends in communities. For instance, in Ames a large percentage of the blotter is filled with arrests or citations of underage drinkers in bars and nightclubs.

There are also some very good arguments against running a police blotter, and I thought a lot about those as well.

Probably the biggest is the fact that our society operates under the philosophy that a person is innocent until proven guilty. And even though we mention this at the top of every police blotter we run, many people feel that guilty or not, if a person’s name is printed in connection with a crime, that person’s reputation will be permanently hurt.

And right or wrong, we publish the blotters under the idea that the public’s right to know about the arrest outweighs the argument that a person’s name may have a stigma attached to it.

But none of these thoughts really comfort me any. I feel that I place a heavy importance in my life on friendship. And I believe that when a friend comes to you for help — even one you haven’t seen for a year — you should help them to the best of your abilities.

Yesterday I had to tell a friend that I couldn’t help him, because I was bound by an obligation to my job and to my newspaper.

I will continue to defend that obligation, and I will continue to uphold my responsibilities to the Daily to the best of my ability.

But as I found out yesterday, I won’t always enjoy it.

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Troy McCullough is a senior in journalism mass communication from Pleasantville. He is the editor in chief of the Daily.