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Citizen journalists can help solve crime says police chief

A chief constable says the says the growing army of “citizen journalists” are helping his officers catch lawbreakers.

Dave Jones, chief constable of North Yorkshire Police, highlighted examples of the force being sent videos of motorcyclists and motorists caught speeding or using their mobiles phones while driving.

“Every citizen now is potentially a journalist. When we are at a major incident we get inundated with video and pictures,” he told a public meeting in Hovingham, near Malton.

He urged people who snap pictures and videos of law breakers on their mobile phones to continue sending the information into the police.

But Norton Town Cllr David Lloyd-Williams sounded a note of caution.

“Citizen journalism scares me a little bit. It reminds me of what the KGB did in the Eastern Bloc where there would be one person who constantly reported back to the authorities,” he said.

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  • July 11, 2014 at 10:49 am
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    Journalism is NOT about dobbing your neighbours in for speeding.

    Neither does it have anything to do with out-of-focus snaps of errant drivers lobbing fag ends out of their car. You’re not a journalist just because you have a Samsung Galaxy S4 in your pocket, any more than wearing a striped jersey makes you a burglar.

    Journalism is about informing the public, often about things those in power would rather keep to themselves.

    And for the record…. North Yorkshire Police claim it has the lowest crime rate in England.

    Which is quite a joke, because when I tried to report bank fraud to them recently, they didn’t want to know. Not something they investigate in North Yorkshire.

    Perhaps that’s something Chief Constable Dave Jones can get his amateur ‘journalists’ to expose.

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  • July 11, 2014 at 11:13 am
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    How about the police doing their own job, and these “citizen journalists” sounds awfully like the nosy Neighbourhood Watch brigade with a camera. Being a journalist is not about being a grass……..

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  • July 14, 2014 at 10:16 pm
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    After 20+ years in the job, I still email the local chipwrapper the odd snap of spectacular road prangs when I happen across them (and it’s convenient to do so – I’m not expecting payment for my efforts) but, apart from one they put on their web site and then used their own later taken picture next day in print – they prefer to use their staffer’s effort, even if its one taken when he can get there an hour after the wreckage has been pulled out of the middle of the road.

    It seems ‘Citizen Journalists’ do not include former professional journalists and the good old standard insecurity is as alive and well as it always was.

    As for the fuzz, they always did expect to lay their hands on any info they wanted, though it took a few court orders to make it happen in some notable cases a while back. And, since some driver using a phone is not on it’s own particularly newsworthy, ‘citizens’ photographing it can hardly be considered journalists.

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