Ten golden rules for dealing with the press
by Glenn Wicks, of Derbyshire Police

Imagine having the police and the press on your back at the same time. The job of Force Press Officer is not for the faint-hearted. But, as Glenn Wicks discovered, it is often educational and occasionally entertaining. He recorded his Ten Golden Rules on police-press relations to mark his transfer from the Derbyshire Constbulary press office.

There are times when all the experience in the world doesn’t make force PROs journalists (which is why in the majority of forces the posts are civilianised and ex-journalists are employed.)

There was a tragedy at Brimington when a faulty gas appliance leaked carbon monoxide and not only killed two children and both their parents but also a woman in her eighties in the adjoining house. The media know we can never release the names of dead people until they are a) formally identified and b) their relatives had been informed, but I was amazed to be asked the name of their dead hamster. So my Eighth Golden Rule: “Don’t be upset by the questions the media ask – you don’t have to answer them.”

There are many things we don’t have to say and there are many things that we are not allowed to say by law. For example, children who are offenders can not be named without the permission of a court and there are rigid rules concerning the way we deal with arrested people. That is why you hear the police spokesperson speaking about a dastardly crime committed by a heinous offender in one breath, closely followed by a very tight-lipped clip that a man is “helping us with our enquiries.”

There are even more legal restrictions put on the media once a suspect is charged, so it is vital that they are told once this happens. We don’t name that person, we just have to tell them if he or she is charged.

Things were a little confused legally when a “lifer” on release from an open prison murdered a woman and then disappeared after making threats to her ex-partner. This was one of the occasions when our gloves came off, senior officers decided that the public could be at danger and that was exactly what I broadcast. It turned out that everywhere the man went, he saw his own photographs in newspapers or on the television and he soon turned himself in to police outside our county. My Ninth Golden Rule, then: “The media can be a useful tool in an investigation and are there to be used.”

If you can get the press on your side and actually feel that they too are involved in the investigation, then you can get some really good results.

“Operation Liberate” was set up to deal with offenders in distraction burglaries who often targetted the elderly and entered their homes on the pretext of being bogus officials. The detectives really got the press on their side when the Derby Telegraph agreed to sponsor a helpline for people who believed they had bogus callers. The publicity from the regional press, coupled with some excellent police work, has decimated distraction burglaries and led to a number of offenders being put away.

Leaving aside self-congratulation for a minute, there are always hiccups that can upset things.

Consider the situation: a local photographer comes across a road traffic accident where the police are in attendance, an old lady knocked over. He jumps out of his car and starts taking photographs. The police officer stops him and points out that as the lady is unconscious, she can’t give her permission. The photographer believes he doesn’t need any permission because the incident is in the public domain. Result: stand-off, with both parties wanting to make formal complaints about the other.

Personally, I don’t like making formal complaints, I would much prefer to bring it the ear of the right person. That way, when I drop a clanger, they don’t tend to make complaints about me! So, who was right? Does it matter? Maybe if the two had spoken to each other, rather than at each other, a compromise could have been reached. Either way, it is not the role of the police to have editorial control over which photographs could be taken, never mind published.

The police think so often that we are at the beck and call of journalists who are going to misquote us, make up articles and not let the facts get in the way of a good story. My experience of local journalists is that nothing is further from the truth. Look in any newspaper in the county, listen to the broadcasts from radio and television and you will see the media is full of pro-police stories of crime and criminals.

Each reporter knows that if a police contact is abused, then that reporter will not be welcome any more – and they don’t have that many police contacts. And so I end with my Tenth Golden Rule: “Never forget the power that the police hold.”

I wish all the best to my successor. He will probably find the same as me. It’s a great job being a Police Press Officer and only two things tend to spoil it. The first is dealing with the press and the second, dealing with the police!

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