A chief constable has urged a regional daily to move away from reporting “easy” crime stories, adding it would “struggle” to fill pages without police help.
Sir Jon Murphy, chief constable of Merseyside Police, has given his opinion on how the Liverpool Echo could be improved as part of editor Alastair Machray’s #TellAli project – a survey of readers’ views prior to an upcoming relaunch.
Sir Jon, pictured below, asserted his belief that the Echo sees crime as an easy source of stories in order to sell more papers.
His claims come days after Liverpool-born actor and comedian Neil Fitzmaurice also hit out at the amount of crime in the paper.
Sir Jon told the paper: “I genuinely think the Echo believes that by being miserable so and sos you will sell more papers.
“You would be struggling to fill the paper without us. Had we decided to lock ourselves down you would have struggled. We are an easy source for stories.
“To be fair, though, I don’t think the Echo ever deliberately runs down the city, or even inadvertently – but I know you have big papers and that we are such an easy place to get stories from.”
“Some of the stuff you report is important and I don’t have a problem with it. Where I do believe there is an issue is with stories where I think ‘Who cares?'”
Sir Jon added he did not believe the Echo had an “agenda”, but reflected on clashes between his force and the paper.
He said: “Balance is an important word and, overall, in my five and a half years as chief constable I think the Echo has given the force a fair crack of the whip.
“There have been two or three occasions when I have rung up Ali (Machray) and said ‘I’m not happy with this’ and you’ve always listened.
“And I think our working relationship is better than ever – it’s certainly better than when I was a detective in the force, when we didn’t speak to the Echo at all.”
As part of the #TellAli scheme, which is set to run until the end of June, Alastair has already pledged to review the way the paper covers football after complaints from Everton FC supporters over perceived bias to their arch-rivals Liverpool FC.
Sir Jon, who supports the Reds of Liverpool over the Blues of Everton, said: “I don’t agree with that and I don’t see a problem with the football coverage.
“I’m not a bitter Red – I like the Blues and I like to see both clubs doing well.
“I’ve got a lot of time for Everton. I think Everton have got the edge in terms of being a community club, but both clubs give us a lot of support.”
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Firstly, was that picture taken in the newspaper’s office? A police chief who turns up at a newspaper in full uniform with all the self-important bells and whistles has a pretty puffed-up impression of himself. All the best chief constables I have known, and I have known a few, wouldn’t dream of it. They would just wear a decent suit and perhaps a pair of shoes the Editor couldn’t possibly afford. Secondly, he thinks they print crime stories “just because they want to sell papers”. That old line has been trotted out for 140 years. No time to explain just what a tired, silly remark that really is, but most people reading this will understand the stupidity of the statement. Producing papers that people want, need and have to buy, and web content that HAS to be seen, is at the very core of what we have done in the past and what we should be doing for the future. There is no shame in that. I hope the Editor told this pompous, ill-informed copper where to stick it, but I fear he didn’t.
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With the best will in the world, I wouldn’t listen to anything a copper says about the printed press. A Chief Constable’s dream headline would be along the lines of ‘city safer than ever, police doing sterling job’.
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The Chief constable has a point. In my day as newseditor, I set out to make contacts with all manner of people so the paper was not filled with crime. Crime stories are the easy option, in my experience. You don’t need to go looking for them. They fall into your lap. Finding good stories that interest people, communities and organisations will widen readership. Admittedly in these days of minimum resources it is, probably, easier said than done.
The single most common statement when I went out and about, as a newly appointed newseditor in a fairly similar but smaller patch, to seek people’s views of the paper was that it was full of crime stories which made the place look like it had nothing good going for it.
Big crime stories sell papers, average and small crime stories don’t. They just make a town or city look worse than it really is.
An editor once taught me that newspapers should sell a city up – it’s advice I took seriously.
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I’m with Rose on this one. If we ignore crime in our pages that’ll make the town or city look better than it really is… er, hold on… well something like that anyway. Mind how you go.
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Rose, I disagree, I don’t think good crime stories do fall into your lap because the police are determined not to let them.
Part of their raison d’etre now is controlling what they call ‘the perception of crime’, i.e no news is good news.
It’s virtually impossible to get a line out of press offices these days, and lesson 101 at police college is telling young officers to repeat the words ‘contact the press office’.
We used to get press releases but they were mostly garbage, stuff about canabis plants being seized and someone getting a slap on the wrist, or bikes being marked with anti-theft spray.
On the one occasion I got chatting to a senior office (because she needed something from me) she went through the incident log for the weekend for me and I got four potential splashes out of her in about five minutes.
You can definitely go OTT on the crime side of things, I don’t disagree with that. I think the more interesting crime stories are how policing is working/not working. I touched on that a few times in my own career but had to use FOIs to do it (something which the police are becoming more and more adept at avoiding).
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Heard the one about the deputy editor allowing two senior detectives to supervise the chief sub as he laid out a page one story about a nightclub murder? They even insisted he put murder in the headline when even the most junior down-table sub knew it would be mansalughter at the most, as it was proven later in court. Cross my heart it happened – on the instructions of a deputy editor whose father was a retired police sergeant!
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I don’t doubt things have changed Jeff, but surely good contacts are still key? Perhaps I was lucky and knew enough police officers whose trust I had gained in order to get the story.
I don’t kid myself that it would work everywhere. I was lucky.
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I am afraid Top Cop speaks a measure of truth. There is huge reliance on crime to fill space.
For example lots of papers are so under-staffed they do not cover court any more.
They have become dependant on the same press officers that some HTFP writers seem to despise to send them summaries of the cases, most of them hopelessly one-sided and bearing no mitigation or defence case. Maybe the journos would like to debate the ethics of that.
Talking of being open, how many newspapers publish stories about their circulations plunging and their local offices closing. Now wouldn’t the public be interested in that ?
Try to see both sides folks.
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Remember, the chief constable, whose salary is paid for out of the public purse, is doing us a favour by talking to the Press, and therefore informing the public about how its taxes are being spent!
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Leagallyeager
There aren’t two sides, telling your readers your circulation is plunging serves no purpose, even if you published it they wouldn’t care.
Reporting on crime is the ultimate public interest exercise.
Falling circulation figures aren’t likely to get your head stoved in if you go to the wrong part of town, having one police car on patrol in a town of 120k may very well do.
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“Where I do believe there is an issue is with stories where I think ‘Who cares?’””
Perhaps then, it would be a good idea if he stopped his 12 communications staff from sending out “who cares” stories to the Echo?
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Reminds me of the expensive re-brand my daily paper had 20 years ago when we were told the readers were mostly middle-aged mums and they wanted pink and fluffy, more like Hello! and less crime.
We did this for a while as circulation nose-dived. The reality is that everyone loves to read about misfortune when it affects their neighbours. The court lists are the only reason I continue to buy my local weekly which is full of charity ‘news’ and PR garbage.
I love a good crime story, more not less, please.
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What often mascuerades as the police’s contempt for the press, is the police’s contempt for the public.
Local papers aren’t there to commit hatchet jobs, they couldn’t survive if they did because nobody would talk to them, they’re there to tell a street resident why that police tape was at the end of his road on Thursday.
We have these laughable police and crime commissioners now who are supposed to make the thin blue line more accountable, yet the attempts to control information have never been more aggresive, certainly within my lifetime.
I think it masks a greater malaise in the force, personally. So often now just a career path for political animals for whom front matters more than doing their job, it pretty much all started with Tony Blair. Spin anything, control perception and you control reality.
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Sir Jon has a point but do the owners really care enough to give the editor resources to do anything different?
Yes, crime stories can be easy wins but good crime stories are harder and costlier to get.
If owners want the variety of news that people want to read in the paper then they have to pay for it.
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with you on the Commissioners Jeff Jones. Get rid. Maybe spend the money on cops who talk to press!
Can’t agree the public are not interested in the financial state of the paper they pay money for (just like the cops and taxes). A lot of local papers are well loved and I think readers would be horrified to hear about their decline, but it’s bad PR so papers keep it away from the public.
I do agree that “fear of crime” mantra seems to lie beneath everything cops do. But there has always been an uneasy relationship between cops and media. Hacks need crime to sell papers ( it does) and cop bosses don’t want public thinking their area is riddled with crime. Difficult to resolve that one.
It has been like that for decades and hasn’t changed.
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Writing about crime makes the police – and its figurehead – look bad. Wouldn’t want that if I were them… But I’m not.
Keep up the good work, Echo, and let Plod huff and puff all he likes.
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I disagree with Rose’s editor. It’s not a paper’s job to sell a city up or down. Its role is to tell it like it is.
Once you start bending news to fit an agenda, you’re dead.
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Everything Jeff Jones said.
I guarantee most of the best crime stories we do have not been given to us by the press office. Likewise (and perhaps more so) with the police and crime commissioners, whose press officers are extremely quick to offer ‘feedback’ on accurate stories that might not contain as much of their message as they had hoped for.
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Easy source of copy? Come off it. Plod has strangled the flow of genuine information about crime to the media to barely a trickle, all carefully managed by peculiarly large press offices. Look at most local papers’ nibs and you’ll find precious little worth reading. Something happened somewhere: move along, nothing to see here.
Thank goodness for social media, which has undermined their determined attempts at manipulation. It’s easy to see why they just couldn’t understand what all the RIPA fuss was about…
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Utter rubbish. Crime stories are becoming harder than ever to report properly thanks to obstructive press officers.
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The only reason regionals don’t publish their free falling circulation figures is that it would alert their advertisers as to the lesser audience for their advertised services or goods and they would either pull out or question why they are paying an ad rate that doesn’t reflect the fewer number of eyes seeing their ad, it’s nothing to do with readers not being intetested,circulation figures never were aimed at readers, only potential advertisers and to reassure existing advertisers that they were in s publication people wanted.
editors were quick to shout about sales increases back in the day often taking front page space to do so.lets not lose sight of the simple fact that local papers are more and more there simply to attract ad and commercial revenues with news stories and in depth specialist features readily and instantly available on line .
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“This sends out a strong message that will not be tolerated in our community”.
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Police forces have ‘massaged’ (i.e. lied) about crime figures for many years. Now they refuse to let the public (who pay their wages) know what is really going on in our towns and cities.
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On the point about circulation and sales figures Geoff is right.
Archants EDP still wildly claims to be ” the countrys BEST regional paper” ??? based on what ?
presumably they shout this only to boost egos within the business and to try to convince Norfolk businesses to use the EDP as an advertising medium,yet when challenged about copy sales figures the sales reps are told to not discuss.
Readers really do not care whether a paper is the best,worst or indifferent newspaper around,they make a decision to buy based on content and value not the puff the editor feels he needs to put across.
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When I started out as a young reporter an important part of the job was to get to know the local Plod and visit the police station regularly to go through the incident book. Crime nibs were very popular among readers and occasionally I was rewarded with a good page lead. The public’s appetite for this kind of stuf is still there. On my last patch the local sergeant started and maintained an excellent Facebook page that quickly won lots of followers mainly because his did a regular crime round up and told people about incidents. Helpfully, he also posted links to relevant stories in my paper. The readers were bereft when he was posted away and the page went quiet.
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