A university academic is appealing for journalists to help him research the relationship between police and the media.

Rob Mawby, who teaches criminology at Birmingham City University, is keen to speak to crime correspondents from both the local and national press to examine their perceptions of the police.

Rob said: "This research, entitled The Police, the Media and their Audiences, involves looking at the police-media relationship from three distinct perspectives: media professionals, police press officers and people that gain knowledge and opinions of policing through the media.

"At the moment I am trying to make contact with crime correspondents with a view to setting up interviews to gain journalists' perceptions of police-media relations.

"This would involve meeting for approximately one hour to discuss the work of crime correspondents and the dynamics of the police-media relationship.

"My target is to complete the interviews by the end of 2007 and all the interviews are anonymous.

"The outputs of the research will be a report to the funding body and papers in academic journals and I will make copies of these available to everyone who participates in the research."

The paper is due to be published in spring next year.

Any journalists who would like to take part in Rob's research project can e-mail him on rob.mawby@bcu.ac.uk or call 0121 331 6624 or 07913 228340.