This May Be a Project for Me

in the near future, seeing about asking various Reno media outlets to remove any and all articles pertaining to that false lawsuit that was filed four years ago and was settled last November. The stuff remains on the internet, where any employer can look it up and use that information against me in hiring, especially school-related jobs, even though there was no case and I did nothing wrong.

It may be easier said than done, according to this article. However, I think I would have a very good chance of getting those articles removed. The Reno Gazette-Journal, which stupidly reported the civil action in the first place, withdrew those articles from its webpage almost immediately after they were published, I think perhaps within a week or two. They are not searchable, and I am not sure they are even available in the pay-to-view archive. The paper knew it screwed up; I was beyond furious over that, especially where my name was mentioned and I was vilified in comments following that article and many others.

From Reputation.com:

Reasons That News Organizations Will Or Won’t Unpublish Articles

Of course, sometimes a correction isn’t enough, but there is very little industry consensus as to when the complete unpublishing of an article is justified. Almost 80 percent of editors surveyed said they had deleted articles in the past, but their reasons varied widely. In 2009, Kathy English of the Toronto Star released an in-depth study on the issue: “The Longtail of News: To Unpublish or Not to Unpublish.” Read this report before you approach any newspaper with an unpublishing request.

Drawn from English’s data, below are the top two reasons newspapers have deleted articles, along with the percentage of respondents that have accepted each reason:

The content is viewed as inaccurate or unfair: 67 percent
Inflammatory or defamatory language or comments: 48.7 percent

The reasons least likely to get an article unpublished are the following:

Source rethinks what they want wider audience to know about them: 0.0 percent
Concerns that the post contains private information: 10.4 percent

Knowing these statistics can help you on your quest to understand how to remove news articles from the Web and protect your online reputation.

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