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Police Chief Takes To Facebook To Complain About A Journalist Committing Journalism
Generally speaking, law enforcement is a closed shop. It usually takes diligent efforts by journalists to pry loose documents pertaining to misconduct or misbehavior. State laws tend to make this more difficult than it should be by granting law enforcement agencies tons of public records exemptions.
It's this strained relationship being highlighted in an incredibly ill-advised Facebook post by the Aurora (IL) Police Department, penned by police chief Kristen Ziman. As Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery pointed out on Twitter, it's not every day you witness a police department berate a journalist for practicing journalism.
For six months, a reporter at a local newspaper has been seeking essentially the complete case file of the tragic incident where a young man took his own life after exchanging gunshots with an Aurora Police officer in October, 2016. Both the reporter and the publication were especially interested in the officer's dash cam video of the traffic stop that began the entire episode in an apparent attempt to disprove its justification. (The publication wrote an editorial on March 26, 2017, calling into question the officer's actions and our explanation of events.) You can see the stop and events that led up to it on this post.
[...] While I understand FOIA's enhance openness and public transparency, many of the FOIA's this reporter files don't result in published articles. The hours the city has worked to fulfill her FOIA requests has cost taxpayers and resulted in police supervisors devoting their time on FOIA requests rather than concentrating on our crime fighting initiatives. The demand for trust between the community and the police is prolific. At some point, there has to be a trusting relationship between the media and the police.
[...] Finally, the Facebook post says "there has to be a trusting relationship between the media and police." No, there absolutely does not. This is completely wrong. Journalism is nothing more than stenography if it allows government agencies to steer narratives and coverage. Chief Ziman seems to think reporters should accept every statement made by police officials at face value, rather than seek underlying documents. That's not trust. That's obeisance. It's worthless in the context of transparency and accountability.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 01 2017, @09:06AM (3 children)
Complaint is about resources, AFAICT. The chief is complaining that FOIA costs them effort.
Maybe at that point the chief should agree to disagree. :) Yes, it costs money for FOIA. But that's the cost of transparency. It would be nice for transparency that all police files were opened on public site somewhere, but police doesn't want that and it probably would not be a good idea either - you know, witness names and all that. So all we have is this FOIA, where when someone wants access to these sensitive files, the names of the innocent can be withheld.
Now, if there was a court case about this incident, then FOIA probably wouldn't be necessary. Then again, court cases probably more expensive on all sides than FOIA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 01 2017, @04:15PM
Government should be run like a company; we need to cut costs where-ever we see them and this 'transparency' is not a crucial thing so it should be cut. We cops are the good guys, you guys are the bad guys. When will this get through to you
criminalspeople.Oh, almost forgot: </sarc>
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday October 01 2017, @09:06PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday October 02 2017, @02:53AM
I can fill in Step 6 for you:
6. Put it 'in the cloud' and charge your customers again for it