Training
Are you breaking the story or
is the story breaking you?
Although they may not be at the forefront, pub-
lic information officers (PIOs) are the voice of an
agency and have the responsibility of trying to
shape the public’s perception of the department.
While serving as a PIO is already a challenging job,
the advent of the 24-hour news cycle has made
it even more so. Frantic calls from reporters at
4 p.m. in advance of a looming deadline have been
Philip replaced by emails mere minutes after an incident
Rizzo
has taken place, sometimes before you’ve even
arrived on scene, thanks to social media. Services
like the Breaking News Network (BNN) have made John Q. Pub-
lic a credentialed reporter with a direct line to mainstream news
networks. This creates the question, “Is your agency breaking
the story or is the story breaking your agency?”
Today, we live in a fast-paced world and no longer have the
luxury of time when it comes to dealing with the media, which
means the agency’s initial statement will be the one remem-
bered. A prime example of this is the shooting of Officer Jacai
Colson in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in March 2016. Of-
ficer Colson was assigned to a plainclothes unit and responded
to an active shooter at his headquarters. As the other officers
exited headquarters, they observed Officer Colson, who was
armed and in the area of the shooter. He was fatally shot by one
of his own officers. In a press conference shortly after the inci-
dent, the chief stated that Officer Colson was “deliberately shot
by a fellow officer.” Was that what happened? Yes, it was. Is the
perception of that statement accurate? It is not.
Officer Colson was misidentified as a hostile target during
an extremely chaotic scene. The statement “deliberately shot”
is the first story that comes up on an internet search of these
tragic events. One statement shaped the narrative of this story.
It took the spotlight away from an active shooter who caused
the death of an officer and placed it squarely onto the shoul-
ders of an officer who was responding to the incident. Luckily,
the chief and PIO had great relationships with local media and
were able to bring the focus back to the fact that Officer Colson
was a hero who lost his life protecting his community from an
armed felon.
Historically, law enforcement has taken the stance of “We’re
the police and we will give them what we want, when we want.”
This mindset doesn’t work anymore. There are too many citizen
reporters with cameras and a voice to draw this hard line in the
sand. This attitude will simply foster an environment of mis-
trust and a lack of transparency with the perception that some-
thing is being hidden.
Today we should be asking, “How quickly can we provide
information and how much information can we provide with-
out compromising the investigation or agency?” The media
shouldn’t be “scooping” the agency’s stories; the agency should
be breaking the news to the media. By providing information
early, the agency drives the narrative, not the media. Negative
stories are bound to happen and there’s nothing we can do to
prevent that. However, we can try to control how the communi-
ty views us. It’s like Mom and Dad always said, “It’ll be better if
you just tell us what happened.”
It has been said, “Your intentions don’t matter. Perception is
reality. If people perceive you the wrong way, it doesn’t matter
what your intentions are.” If the agency delays providing the
public with basic information about an incident, the perception
is that they are hiding something. Providing information early
and often will give the community a feeling that the agency is
open and transparent. Likewise, the choice of words, as inno-
cent as they may seem, could completely change the meaning
of a statement. For these reasons, it’s imperative that agencies
reevaluate how they treat and release information to the public.
The chief executive must ensure that competent and well-
trained public information officers represent the agency and
must grant the PIOs a level of autonomy that enables them to
develop good working relationships with the media. Private
sector companies have large budgets with highly trained pro-
fessionals that shape their public image. While we may not
have the budgets that our private sector counterparts do, we
should treat the public information function as if we did. The
reputation of our agencies and our profession as a whole de-
pends on it. d
Philip J. Rizzo is a lieutenant with the Franklin Township Po-
lice Department, a member of Franklin Township Local 154
and an instructor at the J. Harris Academy of Police Training, a
promotional test preparation and in-service training company.
www.njcopsmagazine.com
■ july 2017 65