Recently we changed The News & Observer's policy on including physical descriptions (among them, race) in crime reporting, a move worth explaining.

First, the new policy. In general, The N&O will use physical descriptions in crime reporting:

• When police have turned up a body without identification and details might aid in determining identity.
• When police are looking for a missing person (generally, we have a name and photo in these situations).
• When a violent crime has been reported and police have issued a physical description.

Our previous policy on crime reporting provided for the use of race when a serious crime had been reported and police offered a detailed physical description. We generally avoided broad descriptions such as "Police were seeking a Hispanic male, medium height, medium weight."

There was good reason for this approach. Often, racial or ethnic descriptions don't truly distinguish one person from the next.

Hispanics might be black, white or brown. People often guess wrong on race -- like a friend of mine long ago who ran up to a brown-skinned man and began speaking to him in Spanish. (He was Cambodian.)

African-American people might be dark-skinned or light-skinned. Many people are multiracial.

However, our prior policy resulted in confusion within our newsroom staff that resulted in inconsistency in our coverage. Sometimes a general racial description was included; other times it was omitted.

As police broadcast descriptions of suspects including race, clothing and general height and weight, we appeared to be taking a stand by withholding only the racial element and including other details.

Managing Editor John Drescher and a staff committee reviewed our approach to develop a standard we could communicate clearly and follow consistently.

We did not reach consensus.

Some of our journalists made persuasive arguments that general physical descriptions do not contribute to public safety and instead lead to a corrosive portrayal of minorities in crime reporting.

However, Drescher noted that our aim is to provide as much information as possible. When police release descriptions, we will publish the details provided.

We'll go beyond that, however, in pressing for as many other specific details as possible. When information is missing, we will note that fact. The aim, after all, is to be as complete as possible in our reporting.

In explaining the change, it's important to mention factors that did not influence us.

We weren't swayed by critics who seem to keep score on race and crime. Nor were we trying to be politically correct.

As with most of our practices, this one aims for accuracy and fairness. We'll keep watch to see how that goes.