The news media demand transparency of those in power. So when they mess up, they have a particular responsibility to be transparent with their audience.

But when the staff at one of UW-Madison’s two daily student newspapers, The Badger Herald, caught the paper’s state editor plagiarizing, its reaction was anything but forthright.

Madison’s other student paper, The Daily Cardinal, reported on Wednesday that on Nov. 29, Dan Powell of The Badger Herald had been caught plagiarizing a story and was fired the next day. The ensuing investigation uncovered 11 other stories in which he had plagiarized from major newspapers, sometimes copying word for word.

The Herald’s editor ran a column Wednesday, apologizing to readers and saying the staff had intended to withhold Powell’s identity to protect his future career. By the time the Herald ran the apology, other papers had already disclosed his name.

For a daily newspaper, waiting a week to inform readers of such a serious situation – and then doing so on an inside page, under the headline “From the desk of the editor” – doesn’t cut it. The paper should have acted immediately to distance itself from Powell and to make it clear that he was no longer involved with the paper, and they should have done so in a manner more conspicuous to readers.

A newspaper has to put the needs of its readers above the interests of individual reporters. By plagiarizing, Powell forfeited his journalistic credibility. But if the staff really wanted to make sure the matter was fully investigated before identifying Powell, it still could have alerted readers to the situation right away but identified him in a later column.

It’s easy to point fingers and to make judgments in hindsight. As student journalists, we’re still learning, and we all make mistakes. Unfortunately, credibility is something that takes a long time to build and only moments to take away. But the Herald’s step to regaining readers’ trust should be to do its job of holding people accountable – even its own staff.