| Chapter 1
The
Crime Beat
By
Dave Krajicek
Access Limits
While conditions and relationship vary greatly from city to city
or even agency to agency, the marked trend of the past 10 years
has been to limit both physical access by and the flow of information
to the media.
The point in either case is control. Why is this happening? Some
believe the media helped bring it on by the excesses of coverage
of crime stories in the 1990s. The O.J. Simpson case is one often-cited
example.
Here is what we face:
- At crime scenes, breaking news events and even courthouses,
we are frequently bullpenned, often out of view of the action.
- At police stations, where we once enjoyed ready access
to detective bureaus and other non-public places, journalists are
being confined to press rooms and public areas.
- Increasingly, media inquiries to police agencies large
and small are channeled through the press information office for
"authorization." Some PIOs facilitate direct access for
reporters to knowledgeable police sources; still, anecdotal evidence
indicates stories quoting a "police spokesman" are growing
ever more ubiquitous.
- In many cities, police blotters are being edited or redacted
to remove contact information for witnesses and victims, rendering
the reports virtually useless for journalists. (Not all blotter
news is bad. Illinois recently approved a law, supported by the
state press association, that standardized information available
to the media on police blotters.)
- Auto registration and other motor vehicle information,
for years a part of a crime reporter's repertoire of information
sources, has been cut off in most states by the 1994 federal Driver's
Privacy Protection Act, inspired by the murder of an actress who
was stalked and killed by a man who learned her home address through
motor vehicle records.
Some tips:
- Begin with rational discussion. Often the PIO or commanders
involved are following orders. Find the decision-maker and talk
about it.
- Don't make threats. Beat reporters should avoid warnings
about "cutting off" positive news stories. Any decision
regarding a certain story must be made only in consultation with
your news manager.
- Pick your fights carefully. Is pressing the disagreement
worth the time, energy and bad blood? (Doug Cummings, a radio crime
reporter and former cop in Chicago, recommends caution. He says,
"If I've learned anything from being a cop and covering them
it's this: cops have long memories and believe in 'forever payback.'"
He adds most police officers can cite a case where a journalist
"burned" a cop, but the story often is second- or third-hand:
"My buddy Joe told me about this reporter once who burned his
partner's training officer's partner.")
- Don't fight alone in the battle against an information bottleneck.
Talk with your editors and insist upon their active support and
participation, including legal help. Local media associations and
even competing news organizations also can be compelled to join
the fight.
- National journalism advocacy groups, including CJJ as well
as Investigative Reporters and Editors, Society or Professional
Journalists, American Society of Newspaper Editors, and Associated
Press Managing Editors, and others, may be able to help. The web
site of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (http://www.rcfp.com)
offers suggestions under its Tapping Official Secrets icon.
- Most states have an open government committee whose membership
typically includes state officials and private citizens. The government
web site likely lists applicable laws. Consider asking for intervention.
For more information, see the web site of the National Freedom
of Information Coalition, http://www.nfoic.org
- Take your challenge to the politicians who oversee the police
department, and force them to take a stand. They may have more at
stake than cops who are protected by civil service.
- Consider writing or broadcasting a story about the problem.
The public might be interested to know the details of the conflict.
Are members of the public facing the same problems gaining information?
- If the police cite a specific law or victims' rights initiative
for guarding information, track the law or initiative to its source.
Is this what the legislature, council or advocacy group intended?
- In worst-case scenarios, go around the police for information
by speaking directly with prosecutors, public defenders and/or attorneys
for the accused.
A News Blackout
Wildcat interpretations of legislated or court-mandated procedural
changes in law enforcement often have an impact on media access.
In one recent case, prosecutors and law enforcers in Illinois stopped
releasing information about arrests.
A committee of Illinois Supreme Court amended the court's "Rules
of Professional Conduct" to limit out-of-court comments by
attorneys involved in criminal trials. Opposed by prosecutors, one
new rule cautioned prosecutors to "exercise reasonable care
to prevent investigators, law enforcement personnel, employees or
other persons assisting or associated with the prosecutor in a criminal
case from making an extra-judicial (out-of-court) statement that
the public prosecutor or other government lawyer would be forbidden
from making."
When the rule took effect, several angry county prosecutors decided
it prohibited police from providing even basic information about
an arrest, including names and circumstances. The news blackout
was short-lived, but some saw it as another harbinger of future
media struggles for information.
Doing Our Job?
Some journalists considered it an intrusion when Fairfax County,
Va., police began dispensing advice to crime victims about how to
deal with the media. Cops give victims in prominent cases a card
that forewarns them about reporters, advises them they are not required
to cooperate with journalists and suggests they call police before
they agree to talk.
The card carries the phone numbers for the assigned officer, a
PIO and the local victim services agency.
The use of media-advice cards was prompted by the airing of news
videotape about an abduction that was viewed as irresponsible by
Fairfax cops. Journalists protested the move, but a number of police
departments across the country were said to be looking in to adopting
the Fairfax method.
So far, the innovation has not spread.
Uncooperative Sources
There is nothing a journalist can do to compel an uncooperative
law enforcer to answer questions. This is a frequent frustration
for every journalist. Here are a few tips:
- Don't lose your cool. Bullying almost never works. Calmly
explain why it behooves the reticent source to speak to you –
for example, to avoid the reporting of misinformation, to reassure
the citizenry, or to air both sides in a controversy. If the source
is a crime commissioner or police chief, you might suggest that
media work is part of his job.
- Is negotiation appropriate? For example, a source who turned
you away from his home might agree to sit down at a neutral location.
In special cases, consider allowing ground rules. Although a controversial
tactic, some news managers will consider a ground rule in which
you agree not to press for certain details. Talk to your editor
first.
- Leave your business card and include 24-hour contact numbers.
Perhaps the source will reconsider.
- Try e-mail. Some journalists find the informality and impersonal
nature of e-mail puts some sources at ease.
- If the source is avoiding you, camp out at his office. If
that fails, follow him to public appearances – a promotion
ceremony or crime forum.
- Use your contact resources. Your news organization should
maintain a data base of emergency contact information – home,
cell, beeper, e-mail – for crucial law enforcement personnel.
Using the information sparingly, but use it when necessary. (If
your operation doesn't have such a list, start one.)
- Contact the source's closest colleagues.
- Contact the source's lawyer if he has one.
- Is the information you seek available at a second, more cooperative
source? For example in a police scandal the prosecutor of jurisdiction
or the chairman of the government committee that oversees law enforcement
in your city or county should be able to provide some details or
comment. Press other elected officials, as well.
- If necessary, go over the source's head. Perhaps the supervisor
will be more motivated to speak with you.
- Keep notes on your attempts to contact a reticent source.
These could be used in a story or to respond to a source's complains.
- Don't go it alone if an entire squad or department shuts
you out. Tell your editors, and make sure they follow through with
politicians and law enforcement supervisors, if appropriate.
- Be persistent, but don't harass a source. If the source declines
comment verbally or fails to respond to messages you know he has
received, there is little more you can do.
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