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Police are editing my paper says news chief

A long-serving Scottish editor has slammed the police for withholding information about weekly crimes from newspapers.

In a strongly-worded editorial, Largs & Millport Weekly News boss Drew Cochrane accused a police constable based 20 miles away of “editing his paper.”

Drew, who has led the Ayrshire title for the past 36 years, used a Freedom of Information request to find that hundreds of crimes were recorded in the Largs district between January and June this year.

However only a fraction of them made the paper, with the constable merely emailing them two or three minor items a week.

In his “Cochrane’s Column” in this week’s paper, Drew wrote: “It wasn’t that long ago that a reporter could sit down with a local police officer, usually a sergeant or an inspector, and take a note of what crimes were taking place in the community.

“About five years ago the police decided they were too busy to speak to the local paper and they would send us short emails about certain crimes. They normally begged more questions than they answered but we could still pursue it through the Largs police station.

“When they decided to email a weekly crime report from Saltcoats I began to notice a decline in incidents taking place in the Largs area. A coincidence? Better detection? I think not.

“Now, we are emailed two or three incidents once a week from a constable sitting in Irvine Police Station. And guess what? The number of crimes taking place in our communities has declined even further.

“What’s actually been happening is a police practice of only recording incidents as crime if they really, really have to. It’s like responding to phone calls only if they really, really have to.

“Our Freedom of Information request this week confirmed my suspicions. We are only told what the police want to tell us.

“From January to June there were hundreds of crimes in the Largs area. We have been told about a few dozen of them.

He added: “Editors are under more pressure than ever before nowadays but I never thought I’d see the day when a deskbound constable in Irvine was editing my newspaper.”

Drew, who is thought to be the longest-serving editor in the UK, is a former chairman of both the Guild and Society of Editors in Scotland.

He is only the latest editor to highlight what has been long been a growing concern in the industry.

In September 2008, Oxford Mail crime reporter Matt Wilkinson used the FoI Act to discover there were over 6,000 crimes reported to Thames Valley Police in Oxfordshire during a four-week period.

During the same period, only 22 were put out to the public, leading editor Simon O’Neill to lambast the force’s “no communications policy.”

16 comments

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  • August 26, 2011 at 9:50 am
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    No real surprise there. I was once told by a police press officer that we would only be told about crimes if we asked about a specific incident – all other decisions about whether to release details to the press were made by the senior officer in charge of the incident.
    But the police are straight on the phone if they need our help. Amazing.

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  • August 26, 2011 at 10:09 am
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    How many politicians or media would complain about officers being withdrawn from the beat in the face of cuts? Quite a few. So you have to accept that the ‘back office’ functions cannot perform every task that you request.
    Some officers are innovative in using Twitter to keep residents informed of local incidents but the service the media expects is very labour intensive, and to what end? Who does it help if you list every crime?

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  • August 26, 2011 at 10:14 am
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    Not a surprise at all, the police are custodians of the law, but seem to think that they are above the law all at the same time.

    Unless the Home Office gets a grip on this then we shall sink further into a ‘police state’ than we are already in.

    As a PR company we have stopped covering any police activity, unless we deem it to be in the public interest.

    If they want press help then I suggest they start to run a paper – or put a Supplement in The Police Gazette!

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  • August 26, 2011 at 10:27 am
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    The other worrying feature of police communication is the poor quality of it.
    We carried a serious burglary report last week where a child had been forced into a bathroom by the culprit. The house owner told me that the description of the wanted man that the police gave our newspaper was very poor and not what he had told them.
    A month earlier in a report of car vandalisms – which they only gave us when we brought to their attention – the police description was of two youths an a “six foot blonde wearing blue shorts.” Possible, yes, but highly unlikely..and if she did it in a small town why couldn’t they find her?

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  • August 26, 2011 at 10:38 am
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    Typical – it is happening almost everywhere.
    Why not ask your readers to call in if they have been the victims of crime? Some will.

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  • August 26, 2011 at 10:49 am
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    ” …over 6,000 crimes reported to Thames Valley Police in Oxfordshire during a four-week period.”
    That’s just about nine crimes an hour! No wonder local police are struggling to filter details to the media. And the situation will get worse before it gets better … remember, police numbers (like newspaper staff numbers) are in the process of being radically reduced. How long will it be before editors persuade readers to ring in with their own victims-of-crime experiences, perhaps offering an exciting prize for the best?

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  • August 26, 2011 at 11:05 am
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    You’re lucky it’s not just the police! Most head teachers, council PRs etc play a big part in editing local papers. The ‘real’ editor just edits what’s left!

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  • August 26, 2011 at 12:30 pm
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    cleland thom raises a good point re head teachers. I believe head teachers are still inclined to send press releases to their local papers, putting their own spin on Ofsted inspection reports. They emphasise the positive points and ignore references to where improvements can be made. In accepting the school’s contribution, I always insisted that a copy of the original Ofsted report be included for reference.

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  • August 26, 2011 at 1:08 pm
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    I think Cleland Thom is utterly wrong.

    I thought we all learned a very long time ago that the public sector spin doctors will be of almost no help to a journalist?

    If you relied on that lot to fill your columns with “news” you’d have very thin pickings indeed.

    The trick is to bypass the spinners and get to the real story by other means.

    That’s were good contacts and persistence come in.

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  • August 26, 2011 at 2:43 pm
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    Perhaps it is because Police are busy, and are in no way obliged to give reporters cheap and easy copy to fill there newspaper. Get out of the office and into you’re patch if you want stories. Can’t stand hacks who rely on the emergency services for NIBS – these are only interesting to the handful of people involved and very few others will care.

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  • August 26, 2011 at 3:04 pm
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    Why would they tell us about every crime? The police in my patch are more concerned about reducing the public’s fears and perceptions of crime, than reducing crime itself. So the way I see it is it’s their job to keep it from us, but our job to find out anyway. And no, I’m not old enough to remember the good old days before press officers!

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  • August 26, 2011 at 3:29 pm
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    The word cub in Multi-Media Cub’s message above is the operative word.
    The correct grammar is: ‘their newspaper’ and ”your patch.’
    You wouldn’t happen to be connected to the police, by any chance?

    And Claire of Kent you sound like a police press officer.

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  • August 26, 2011 at 3:38 pm
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    The Oxford English Dictionary defines operative as a word used to describe something, “functioning, operational or active.” In what way is the word cub serving any of theses purposes? If you are going to be a linguistic pedant, at least have an exemplary grasp of the language yourself.

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  • August 26, 2011 at 4:43 pm
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    Come on now, Multi-media Cub, Cochrane is hardly a “linguistic pedant” for pointing out your infant-schoolboy errors of using “there” instead of “their”, and “your’s” instead of “yours”. Be grateful for the lesson you were clearly never taught at school. My guess is that you’re not a hack (see the correct usage there – ‘you’re’, short for ‘you are’). You may have many qualities, but a basic grasp of grammar isn’t among them.

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  • August 26, 2011 at 5:05 pm
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    Cochrane, I think you’ve missed my point. I’m criticising the police here, as well as the editor in the story.

    Police chiefs have shifted their focus from trying to reduce crime to just trying to make us all BELIEVE we live in a safe place.

    Therefore NOT telling us reporters about crimes that have taken place is a strategic policy. It’s our job to get around it.

    So no, I’m certainly not a press officer!

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