Public Safety

Public Safety & Disasters I

The public safety beat usually covers police and fire departments as well as EMT, i.e. emergency medical technicians. These departments are usually the first called during disasters, as could be seen during 9/11. Disasters could also include derailed trains, overturned trucks loaded with toxic chemicals, communities flattened by tornados or swamped by floods. Because the beat deals with crisis and death, you must be careful, skilled and sensitive in covering this beat.

Good reporter-source relationships play a crucial role on the beat. You must doggedly build these relationships by making yourself known as often as possible, i.e. go to every scene and run-of-the-mill event to get to know the individuals working. They may not like you, but they'll respect the fact that you're out there to get the news.

Remember: you and the police are after the same thing -- details of the crime and the guilty party -- just for different reasons.

Indentifying Key Players

When you're new to the public safety beat, you must identify the key players in each department. Some cities have separate fire and police chiefs, while others have a public safety director overlooking both functions. The top administrator will be responsible to the city manager or mayor. In a county, the sheriff is the top law enforcement official and the fire marshal will investigate fire-related incidents. Every police chief, sheriff, fire chief, fire marshal, or precinct commander has a different way of running things; you must understand each officer's specific views on public safety topics.

In addition to learning how each department works and the types of cases each investigates, you must also understand what is going on in the department, i.e. what's on the minds of the employees. Benefits? Salaries? Safety? Check the police union's web site and go to events that might not make stories, but that will help make contacts, e.g. promotion ceremonies and recruit class graduations.

Realize the culture of each agency is different. In some cases, city police officers are more willing to talk than sheriff's deputies. Also realize that you should speak with community group members about crime to get a broader view on the public safety of any community.

Reporters should also remember police departments work in conjunction with state law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to solve crimes. A good reporter must have contacts there as well. Local fire departments also work with state law enforcement agencies on arson cases.

The Burden of Accuracy

While it's important not to make mistakes in any story, those working the public safety beat have an additional burden to make sure it's correct. When people die, are injured, are taken hostage or are charged with crimes, victims and assailants MUST be identified accurately.

Sometimes the police reports might have misspellings or difficult-to-read handwriting. It's your job to get it correct, though. While qualified privilege will protect you from libel, no one wants to be in the position of explaining to a family member why their son or daughter was misidentified as a criminal. If you have questions about an individual's identity or how a crime occurred, ask for clarification.

Procedures

It seems straight-forward enough, i.e. criminals break the law, get arrested by police, charged with a crime and the process towards trial begins. But it's not always that cut and dried. You must learn the criminal laws of the state and the court procedures so you'll know where police take criminals after arrest, e.g. the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock don't have jails, so officers take the criminals to the Pulaski County Detention Center.

Many local police departments use the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting System for reporting statistics, but not every state is consistent in defining particular crimes. (The following crime definitions come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook 2002):

Aggravated Assault: An unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. This type of assault usually is accompanied by the use of a weapon or by means likely to produce death or great bodily harm. In reporting assault, attempts are included because serious personal injury could result if the crime were successfully completed.

Arson: The malicious or willful burning or attempt to burn, with or without intent to defraud, a dwelling, house, public building, motor vehicle or aircraft, personal property of another, etc.

Burglary: The unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft. The use of force to gain entry is not required to classify an offense as a burglary.

Forcible Rape: The carnal knowledge of a person, forcibly and/or against that person's will. In reporting rape, assaults or attempts to commit rape by force or threat of force are also included.

Hate Crime: Also known as a bias crime, it is a criminal offense committed against a person, property or society, which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.

Larceny or theft: The unlawful taking, carrying, leading or riding away of property from the possession or constructive possession of another. It includes crimes such as shoplifting, pocket-picking, purse-snatching, thefts from motor vehicles, thefts of motor vehicle parts or accessories, bicycle thefts, etc., in which no use of force, violence or fraud occurs.

Motor Vehicle Theft: The theft or attempted theft of a motor vehicle, including stealing of automobiles, buses, trucks, motorcycles, motorscooters, snowmobiles, etc.

Murder and Nonnegligent Manslaughter: The willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another. (Remember, homicide might not be murder, e.g. if an officer shoots and kills a knife-wielding man, it may not be treated as murder.)

Robbery: The taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.

You also must understand any departmental rules that govern a law enforcement officer's interaction with the media, e.g. some departments funnel information through the Public Information Officer before speaking with other officers (such as Kidwell in Public Safety). Although there might not be a formal rule, even breaking the unwritten rules can have consequences to the continued relationship with the department, i.e. you may sacrifice cooperation from the department.

Reporters who have a good relationship with public safety officials have a better chance of gaining access, and certainly gathering information, particularly on deadline.

Access to Information

In covering large geographical areas, reporters might have to contact several public safety departments, including a county sheriff's office, local fire departments, and an emergency management system. So you might not visit every department every day, relying instead on telephone calls and the desk officer's idea of what's news. Whenever this is the case, be sure to get the name and rank of the quoted officer.

As previously noted, you have a right to police records through FOI. However, they can charge you for copying. If the charges seem excessive, don't hesitate to challenge the fee. Access to public information requires a balancing act on both sides. The officials' ultimate goal is to solve a crime, a goal that might be helped or hampered by releasing information to the media so that the public can come forward with tips, e.g. that's what ultimately led to a break in the 2002 sniper shootings in Maryland.

Police also might withhold information so officers do not tip criminals that are about to be caught. While your ultimate goal is to give the public as much information as possible, the ethical journalist will withhold information to prevent injury or death.

While media can aid in solving crimes, it's unlikely that journalists will have more access to information in the future. States with the most open access to officials and records began tightening access in the post-9/11 environment. Many have added antiterrorist security plans to the list of materials exempt from the public and the media. Some states streamlined their Web sites, removing locations of power plants and nuclear reactors, architectural drawings of government buildings, and state water resource locations (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 2003).

Government databases have also been vanishing from the Internet since 9/11. In the end, such secrecy will affect all aspects of journalism, especially public safety reporting.

Getting to the scene

To cover public safety completely, you must get to the scene of the crime. Typically someone in the news station is monitoring the police scanner to get leads on major breaking news stories. But remember, it's not an official report. And the scanner may become obsolete, e.g. in northwest Louisiana, emergency service calls go directly to a Web site for everyone to see. The editor of the Shreveport Times told Editor & Publisher that it saves a lot of time (2003).

How close you can get to the scene depends on the police, fire, or emergency management's media guides. The police develop these with three things in mind regarding the release of information:

It does not jeopardize an individual's rights
It does not impair prosecution
It does not impede the law enforcement process.

Reporters may face trespassing charges if they venture onto private property without permission. Reporters can also be arrested if they hinder police in their investigations or arrests.

Dealing with Trauma

Reporters have a duty to be careful in what they present to the audiences. Edit all pictures and video carefully, especially live coverage. In addition to sensitivity in reporting the visual aspect of a crime or disaster, you must exercise care when talking with survivors, witnesses or grieving relatives. Approaching sources takes sensitivity; if someone does not want to comment, reporters must respect that decision.

Sometimes reporters must let the victims initiate contact, e.g. during the Catholic Church scandal, the Boston Globe set up a "tip box" that allowed someone who wanted to report past clergy sex abuse to talk to a reporter, leave a confidential message or send an e-mail. Several thousand people responded over a couple of years.

In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombings, staff followed policies meant to provide dignity and respect to families, such as callbacks to verify facts and quotes. The newspaper also only covered public, not private, funerals of disaster victims.

Journalists must be aware that they can be victims, too. The impact of covering gruesome or traumatic events will affect mental health. Rather than trying to deny or bluster through with bravado, reporters should know their limits and explain to a supervisor if they are not the appropriate person for an assignment. Reduce stress by talking to someone, enjoying a hobby or just taking breaks. Don't get suckered into the newsroom culture of suppressing traumatic events and not discussing them for fear of being seen as weak.

For more information on the public safety beat, visit:

Images and articles used here under Educational Fair Use. Notes originally produced to accompany Jan Johnson Yopp and Beth A. Haller's "An Introduction to News Reporting: A Beginning Journalist's Guide," then updated with Melvin Mencher's "News Reporting & Writing" 11th ed. If you don't understand something in this Web note, please e-mail Dr. Sitton.