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Police biased towards BBC radio says regional editor

A regional daily editor has accused his local police force of giving “preferential treatment” to the BBC when advising residents about snow updates.

Ian Murray, editor-in-chief at the Southern Daily Echo, complained to Hampshire Constabulary after the force issued a statement giving advice on how people should cope with traffic conditions caused by the recent adverse weather.

The advice said members of the public should follow BBC Radio Solent for updates and broadcasts about the snow, without mentioning the coverage provided by local newspapers.

But the force said that in directing people to the BBC, it is following national protocol for such emergency situations.

In the letter to deputy chief constable Andy Marsh, Ian highlighted that the Echo’s coverage had attracted well over three-quarters of a million visits when the snow fell last Friday.

He told HTFP: “My point is that such preferential treatment for one medium is grossly unbalanced and ignores that fact thousands of people use the websites of local newspapers for such information, including the Southern Daily Echo which saw more than 750,000 hits on the day of the snow.

“It is time Hampshire Police – and I believe other public bodies – woke up to the fact the BBC is not the be all and end all and the regional press have extremely good and well-used websites as well as Twitter and other social media methods of talking to their communities.”

In the letter, Ian wrote: “The advisory note urged members of the public to follow Radio Solent, the BBC local radio station, for updates and broadcasts.

“I am sure you will agree with me that although well intentioned, this was open support for just one medium in the region.

“Surely a better way of approaching this would have been to advise members of the public to tune in to local radio stations and also visit the websites of radio stations and local newspapers.”

He added that the paper’s Twitter and Facebook entries about the snow were followed by tens of thousands of members of the public.

A spokesman for Hampshire Constabulary said: “We refer to the BBC as part of a long standing agreement for activation of emergency procedures, with 22 partner agencies across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight which form the Local Resilience Forum.
 
“It is called ‘BBC Connecting In A Crisis’, a long established national protocol for warning and informing during times of crisis or emergency situations such as adverse weather.
 
“The activation of the Adverse Weather Office to manage the multi-agency response to the snow conditions is part of that emergency procedure. We have operated this way for many years.”

14 comments

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  • January 23, 2013 at 9:07 am
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    Ah yes the local resilience forum, made up of 22 “partners”. So big and diverse that it’s impossible to operate with any effectiveness or to implement change. Just the way they like it.

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  • January 23, 2013 at 9:07 am
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    And how do they tell the general public to turn to BBC local radio? Apart from advertising on the BBC, which the BBC will do themselves anyway, it’s going to be with statements you expect other media organisations to run. A bit like a Tesco advert telling you to shop in ASDA. Still you can’t argue because it’s a “long standing” “long established protocol” going back “many years”.

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  • January 23, 2013 at 9:34 am
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    I have friends who work in BBC Local Radio, and know of some effective programming of theirs. But also work in commercial media, so am backing the fact that local press should be mentioned also. Heck, on your way in to Leicester from all main roads there are culture (brown) road signs saying ‘for traffic listen to BBC Radio Leicester or Leicester Sound’ – Leicester Sound is sadly capital now, and for some reason no-one has paid to have the signs updated, but that’s by the by for this issue.

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  • January 23, 2013 at 9:46 am
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    This happens a lot, had a police force refuse to release a picture of a jailed man before as it did not meet the criteria for release, only to later find that the local BBC website had been given the picture when they asked for it.

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  • January 23, 2013 at 10:21 am
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    Would love to know how many listeners that BBC station has compared to readership of the papers. I would place a sizeable wager that its audience is much smaller than you might think and will serve infinitely fewer people than the internet. People turn to their local paper’s website because they can get straight to the info they need rather than having to listen to reams of presenters’ rambling first. The police should seriously re-think this outdated policy.

    On a side note, it should be pointed out that the Echo’s high visitor figures for Friday will have also been down to the sacking of the local footy team’s manager, not just snow…

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  • January 23, 2013 at 10:58 am
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    The North Devon Journal website has included regular roads/schools/weather etc updates throughout the bad weather – approximately every 10 to 15 minutes at times. The BBC has been but a pale shadow!

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  • January 23, 2013 at 11:31 am
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    If you’d listened to the local BBC station round here hoping for “crisis” updates you’d have been driven round the bend by a bizarre mix of inane jibber-jabber, phone-in quizzes and naff 1970s pop long before you heard any snow reports.

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  • January 23, 2013 at 12:02 pm
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    Well surely its obvious-people in cars listen to the radio and do not surf the web !

    And the editor of course wants to get his website hits up,Newsquest are really pushing this for some reason at the moment,shame the ed has to have a pop at the police press office,or could just be very sour grapes due to the vast falling sales ;-(

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  • January 23, 2013 at 12:29 pm
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    As a former reporter turned Police PR Officer, it is a much easier process to involve just one media in the emergency / contingency briefings. However, the onus is often on them to share the information on a pooled basis so that all relevant media are able to use this.

    Some of these protocols no doubt need updating, considering the web is just as immediate as local radio, but have you thought that it may just be a basic slip-up that warrants more of a quiet word?

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  • January 23, 2013 at 2:02 pm
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    I do not know the age profile of BBC Solent listeners but it is quite possible that it is quite the wrong channel to inform people who are out and about/driving. BBC local radio is much more likely to have a stay-at-home audience who will stay put in any bad weather because they have no need to go out.

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  • January 23, 2013 at 2:03 pm
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    @Coetzee I do not think the word “share” is known to most local BBC outlets

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  • January 23, 2013 at 2:04 pm
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    Could the Echo join the emergency committee. I worked on a paper elsewhere in the country that did just that; it wasn’t especially time consuming

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  • January 23, 2013 at 4:31 pm
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    @House rules – I think you may be on to something! There’s nothing ‘exclusive’ about keeping people safe.

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