Events | 2009.12.06
Media are increasingly relying on police handouts as a basis for crime stories
Research by a former north-eastern crime writer reveals rise in positive PR stories, rather than reports of actual crimes
They say that dog should not eat dog. And as a former crime reporter on the Sunderland Echo, I am reluctant to criticise colleagues working on hard-pressed regional newspapers. But a disturbing trend in the way they cover crime has left me so concerned that I can no longer bite my lip.
Last year, I highlighted for MediaGuardian how Northumbria police hold back serious crimes from the media . Meanwhile, the force\'s £1.5m-a-year corporate communications department pumps out more press releases on falling crime rates, clampdowns, raids, initiatives and other stories designed to produce positive PR. The result, I believe, is that most crime reporting in the north-east is now little more than churnalism.
Six stabbings
But, rather than simply making wild claims, as part of a dissertation for an MA, I examined the way the reporting of crime has changed since I started in the job. For my case study, I chose Northumbria police – one of Britain\'s biggest forces – and the Evening Chronicle, the principal regional newspaper in the north-east.
I found that, in June 2009, they released information about 76 crimes – less than 1% of the total of 7,951 cases, as revealed by a Freedom of Information request. Taking sex attacks as one example, while 62 were reported to Northumbria police, the media were only told about three. There were six stabbings, but none were publicised.
Another worrying factor is the delay in the release of information. In 1989, the average delay between a crime happening and being reported in the Chronicle was one day. Today, the mean average is nearly 14 days. While this figure is distorted by some crimes taking up to 100 days to be released, even expressed as a median, the average delay is three days.
How can it be that we are slower than ever to tell readers what is happening? The answer is that the police are slower at releasing crime statistics. The mean average delay in Northumbria releasing crimes is 9.5 days. The median average is three days. My research also uncovered a change in the complexion of crime reporting. In 1989, around 29% of the Chronicle\'s police-related stories involved the release of information on crimes. The rest was made up mainly of court stories (47%) and accidents (16%). Only 4% could be classed as positive PR-type stories dealing with police raids, campaigns and initiatives.
Today, stories on crimes have fallen to 20%, while court reports are down to 39%. The gap has been filled by positive PR stories, such as crime prevention meetings, which have risen nearly six-fold to 23% in the 20 years to this summer.
Many of these involve officers repeating comments about the region\'s cities being "safe to live and work in". Invariably such comments are published without challenge. Of the 55 positive PR stories issued by Northumbria in June 2009, the Chronicle carried more than two thirds of them.
This raises crucial questions. First, will readers buy newspapers that fail to report serious crimes in their area? Second, now newspapers are so dependent on PR material to fill pages, will they dare bite the hand that feeds them? Northumbria\'s corporate communications department sends out pictures of raids, crime backgrounders and even court reports. Like all forces, it is under pressure to hit government targets on public confidence and fear of crime.
Meanwhile, the Chronicle has had wave after wave of redundancies. Paul Robertson, its editorial director, says: "Our team of journalists has worked hard at maintaining the role of watchdog and champion of the communities our newspapers serve, but it is ever more challenging as we have to adapt to changes both within the industry and the economy in general.
"From a cursory check of our archives, I\'d question some of the methodology and some of the findings of this report. But I\'d be naive to say there isn\'t a growing number of press releases making their way into publications across the country as provided by PR professionals. A newspaper\'s job is to report what\'s going on but also to challenge institutions such as the police, councils and other public bodies to ensure they are providing value for money and doing the job they are paid to do."
A police spokesman says: "Northumbria police refute it withholds serious crimes from the media. Our corporate communications budget includes consultation, marketing, web-based services as well as services to the news media. Budget increases are partly due to the fact that we can no longer rely solely on the media to communicate with the public, but must use a whole range of channels and mechanisms to get important messages across."
Commercial venture
The north-east is not unusual. The journalist Nick Davies, the author of Flat Earth News, says: "If you had told people, say, 40 years ago, that our constitutionally free press would reach the point where we\'d allow the police to write their own news coverage, they\'d have thought you were being paranoid. But it\'s happened and, of course, not just with the police."
However Bob Satchwell, the executive director of the Society of Editors who was a crime reporter on the Lancashire Evening Post in the 1970s, believes that accusations of churnalism are overstated. He says: "There are papers which still invest in journalism but the whole nature of regional papers has been changing because they have lost so much in revenue and in the end it is a commercial venture."
The Oxford Mail editor, Simon O\'Neill, is more critical of his local force. O\'Neill, who was a crime reporter in London in the 1980s, says: "When I walked in here in 2004 as editor, I couldn\'t believe the relations in respect of the appalling quality and timing of the information we got."
After claiming his team had been repeatedly "fobbed off" when requesting data, O\'Neill carried a page one lead last year claiming Thames Valley released information on just 0.3% of reported crimes . O\'Neill says the tactic led to a slight improvement in the flow of information. But he adds: "If the Thames Valley example is replicated across the country, there is a danger that newspapers are just going to shovel the crap the police want them to shovel. When you balance the fact that resources are decreasing, it is the easiest option."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec[...]-reporting-newspapers-research
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