The story sounded like every parent's nightmare.

Police entered an Ottawa Hills home shortly after dawn on March 26 and arrested 13 teens after what appeared to have been an all-night, underage drinking party.

Most of them were unconscious when police arrived. Two were so far gone they had to be revived by firefighters. The next day The Blade reported the story and named all the youths - including four who were 17, and technically minors.

Normally, The Blade doesn't use the names of minors charged with crimes, except in very rare exceptions - and some members of the public were outraged. The story "makes not only The Blade look bad, but also the whole community," one reader wrote.

Why did The Blade use the names?

"This wasn't a decision taken lightly," said Luann Sharp, an assistant managing editor, who discussed the pros and cons with City Editor Jim Wilhelm, Rick Maas, assistant managing editor for news and sports; and Executive Editor Ron Royhab before it was decided the names be used.

Mr. Wilhelm first raised the question after he realized that oth erwise the paper would be naming nine people who were 18 or 19 and leaving out the names of the four 17-year-olds - particularly the young man who apparently hosted the party.

"That didn't seem fair, especially since we were [otherwise] going to name his parents, who were out of town, and include the address of their home, where the arrests oc curred," Mr. Wilhelm said. He added that Ottawa Hills police had issued a press release identifying the names of all those arrested, in cluding the minors.

Mr. Maas, who has two teenage children, emphasized that the edi tors weren't approaching this from an ivory-tower mentality.

"We are parents, too, just like many of our readers," he said. All the editors involved have children, and the worries that go with them.

Was it fair to embarrass them? "Had they been 14 or 15, probably not," Mr. Wilhelm said. But, as he noted, 17-year-olds are capable of making serious decisions. With pa rental consent, young people that age can marry or join the armed forces.

Some readers complained that the story seemed calculated to em barrass Ottawa Hills.

"A negative image is being wrongfully cast on the village," one recent graduate, an Ohio Wesleyan University student, wrote. Mr. Maas said that was scarcely the case.

"Look at the list of those ar rested," he said. "They include kids from Sylvania, Perrysburg, Springfield Township, Bowling Green, and elsewhere."

The newspaper then followed up with a package of stories on Sun day that took a sensitive look at the problems of underage drinking and some policies that communi ties, including Ottawa Hills, have in place to deal with them.

Naturally, the story naming names is bound to cause those named some embarrassment. However, the job of a newspaper is to reasonably and fairly report the news - and the argument could be made that those who do embar rassing things might expect to be embarrassed.

Last year about this time, I talked to Cindy McCue, of Clarkston, Mich., whose son, Brad McCue, was a student at Michigan State University.

Brad had his problems with un derage drinking and run-ins with the law, but nothing ever got into the papers.

The night he turned 21, Brad and some friends went to a bar near campus, where he drank 24 shots in an hour and a half. His friends thought that was hilarious and painted his nose red. They stopped laughing the next day, when they discovered he was dead.

Today, his parents wish some body had "embarrassed" their son before it was too late. Whether The Blade should have printed the names of the minors who were in volved in the Ottawa Hills incident might be arguable - but the edi tors didn't make the decision light ly.

Nor can I find any fault with it.

Anyone with a concern about fairness or accuracy in The Blade is invited to write to me c/o The Blade; 541 North Su- perior St., Toledo, 43660, or e- mail me at OMBLADE@aol.com. I cannot promise to address every question in this column, but I do promise that everyone who contacts me with a serious question will get a personal reply.

Jack Lessenberry is a member of the journalism faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit and a former national editor of The Blade who lives in Huntington Woods, Mich.

First Published April 14, 2000, 4:00 a.m.