Police get more scrutiny from the press

[lovinlife101]

Increasingly, the initial police press release is often slanted and often not the true account of what happened.

Countless cases over the past two years have proven that the officer at the center of an incident is not transparent with what actually happened. Reporters and editors are starting to verify before printing the police version.

Some crime reporters argue that, rather than trying to present the first story as the complete account, they approach it as part of a long process of determining the truth. Often, police do not lay out their full cases until months later when it goes to court.

“These high-profile cases, I don’t see what choice we have to not write about it on the front end,” said one crime reporter at a major metropolitan daily newspaper, who spoke anonymously because he did not have authorization from his bosses to speak. “Question things, certainly — did they prove what they’re saying? Did they show the evidence? [But] that doesn’t happen at the first stage. When somebody gets arrested for murder, they’re not going to lay out the evidence. My job, I think, is to say, ‘This is what your police department said they did’ ” — and then stick with the story to see if it’s true.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyl ... story.html

As they should!

Fortunately, people like Bill Harris are retiring. He printed police press releases verbatim and went OUT OF HIS WAY to promote police any chance he had.

Thankfully, the world is getting smarter about cops.