Police chiefs have been warned against plans to bypass “routinely negative” and “combative” press coverage by making more use of official social media channels.
Police Scotland has come under fire from the Scottish Newspaper Society, after it was revealed the force was drawing up a new communications strategy which will seen more official information posted directly on Facebook and Twitter.
Deputy chief constable Neil Richardson, pictured above left, has complained to the Scottish Parliament’s justice committee over the force’s treatment in the media.
But the Sunday Mail has described the proposed new strategy as a way of “bypassing newspapers and broadcasters” while the Scottish Newspaper Society has accused the force of “shooting the messenger.”
Det Chief Cons Richardson told Members of the Scottish Parliament: “We are actively looking to increase our presence in the digital area. That’s an area where you can get more coverage and can target it to make sure you have more of a balance of information going to the right places.”
He added: “It is disappointing to me, if I’m completely honest, that much of the coverage has been very negative. I’m not saying some of it isn’t justified and of course I am very happy about the notion of accountability and I welcome it.
“But when the coverage is routinely negative and feels combative in its nature, it has an incredibly negative effect on the organisation and the people within it.
“What has been delivered in Scotland is not all negative, and in fact there have been some very strong successes that we are not managing to get into the newspapers and the public consciousness.”
John McLellan, director of the Scottish Newspaper Society and a former editor of the Scotsman, commented: “Every week, newspapers report on Police Scotland’s successes but too often senior officers expect it to be a one-way street where journalists only report what they are told officially when the police decide.
“By blaming the messenger, senior officers risk creating the impression that at best, they are losing their sense of perspective and at worst, have lost control.
“Mainstream media are not going anywhere soon and four million Scottish adults will not be stopping reading newspapers, online or in print.
“Spending valuable time and resources on plans to deliberately disengage with those readers seems a strange way to protect the public image of Police Scotland.”
Since its creation from the merger of eight regional forces in 2013, Police Scotland has been criticised in the press for issues including 999 response delays and spying on journalists’ sources.
John added: “The eight old forces and now Police Scotland have never understood the balance between genuine operational concerns and the public’s right to know.
“In theory, good media relations are vital to any successful police force but the reality can, at times, feel very different.
“The priority for them is to reinforce public confidence and allay what they believe is an unnecessary fear of crime. But it is not the job of the police to manage fear of crime but to prevent it, and media relations and media management are not the same thing.”
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But this has already happened here in England…. Its just that forces have been wise enough not to officially announce it.
There have never been so many press (“communications”) officers, yet the service they provide has never been poorer in the decades that I’ve been dealing with them. Sanitised and superficial stories of serious crime go out via websites and twitter first. Always late, of course, which makes a joke of the witness appeals they always carry.
The rules have changed and at least we now have FOI to help, but many of these well-paid officers don’t even spot the opportunities to get their employer positive publicity, let alone avoid the negative stuff.
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This all started with Tony Blair’s government in my view, every public office became obsessed with spin and controlling the message, and chief constables became political animals that wouldn’t look out of place in a bank or the stock market.
Stats, stats, and more stats.
We got fed nonsense by their press people all the time, usually a cannabis plant discovery or bike marking days, on the rare occasion you spoke to someone in the know they’d tell you the place was a warzone over the weekend. (I was once disgused as a fireman on a night on the job with them when a copper told me there’d been 50 incidents that night, including cars being overturned by youths – no sign of it on the police lines or websites the next day mind you).
I used to try and use FOI to get around them whenever I could. Did stories on the amount of crimes ‘taken into consideration’ which they used to bulk out their stats. (getting a criminal to cop the blame for crimes on the patch in a way that they couldn’t be punished for or wouldn’t go on their record, but would show that the police had a higher detection rate – a burglar could claim responsibility for 40 burglaries and not be punished for them). I also did an FOI piece that showed convictions for cannabis use went down even after it was reclassified as class B.
The police are a big problem now and the press are needed more and more to keep an eye on what they do, and don’t do. In my experience as a private citizen they’re not interested in a crime unless it’s a serious crime, or if you have your own CCTV footage or DNA. The kind of crimes which actually impact most people’s lives though – getting your window smashed, your car vandalised, your kid getting beaten up – they’re not interested.
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Funnily enough, until recently the neighbourhood police on my old patch had a great Facebook page. It had loads of followers, lots of interaction and locals really liked it. At the same time it had a sergeant who was press-friendly, an absolute mine of local information and the source of several good front pages for me. I hardly ever needed the press office. It seemed the perfect balance. Mind you, his force was generally OK about officers talking to reporters.
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Police media management is a scandal, but if they are going to do it, at least do it right. Like a football manager, the best way to keep the hungry press onside is to feed them good stories. If your only relations with the press are through a spin-obsessed press office that only puts out appeals and PR guff, reporters’ only option is to run whatever “negative” stories they can get their hands on, with no fear of damaging their relationship because they don’t have one.
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Spot on former crime hack. I said the same once to the local inspector, I said our interests converged quite a lot, we wanted heads up of good cases and they wanted the good PR, still nothing.
They seemed to instinctively not trust regional press, like we were some kind of cartoon character hacks. It seemed to be institutionalised.
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