Just because the police department lists race as a suspect description doesn't necessarily mean journalists should report it.

Take for instance the Saturday morning crime where a Columbia man said four teens assaulted him in a parking garage. KOMU did not report the race of those teens. KOMU News Director Stacey Woelfel explains why race was left out of the story.

"It doesn't make any sense to put a description on the air that you could use to find that person," Woelfel said. "So we don't put black teenager, middle aged man, something like that without a detailed description of what the person looks like, what they're wearing, age, weight, everything like that and in fact, we'd rather have a surveillance picture of a sketch that somebody could really find somebody with."

Critics say just listing a race and no other details about a suspect unfairly characterizes all members of that race as criminals.