BehindBlueI's
Grandmaster
- Oct 3, 2012
- 25,905
- 113
Thanks for your input. It helps the average Joe to hear of a possibility or rationale not being discussed with regard to policing events. Now, this next statement isn't directed at you personally, but from your above post, my first thought was, No ****, Sherlock. Putting out facts in situations of good shoots, facts that can be easily obtained and demonstrated and favor law enforcement, probably shouldn't be held up for months. I'm not sure how much these consultants are paid, but this was easy money for him/her. Again, my sarcasm isn't directed at you personally. And before anyone jumps in with 'sometimes facts aren't known', 'sometimes facts cannot be released because there is an ongoing investigation.' etc. I get it. There will be exceptions.
It is in a way, but you're looking at it without thinking about the back end. There's a reason it's such a culture shift from "it's an ongoing investigation and we can't say anything until all facts are known" to "let's go with what we know/think we know *right now* and get ahead of the misinformation." It's not quite as cut and dry as you may think. Example:
Remember what happens when something you put out turns out to be incorrect. Then the allegation is cover up, conspiracy, or worse. Remember Sandy Hook and all the ******** that circled around that because some initial information was incorrect due to the initial confusion? Avoiding that sort of thing took priority over reducing public outcry.
Then there's the question of what info can you release and when. If you still have witnesses to talk to who you may want to identify a suspect you can't put pictures out. You can't put a picture of the gun out in public domain if you want to be sure the person who says they saw the gun really saw it vs saw an article about it. Putting out information to soon can taint an investigation, depending on what that information is.
There's more to it than that as well. You know how cops and soldiers have their own language. Having a cop do a press release may result in jargon that isn't really understood by readers, plus sometimes any expert in any given field assumes an audience has some base knowledge they don't actually have. Imagine your techiest friend writing an article on some new computer gizmo and then your grammy reading it. Does your friend have a good grasp on what she knows/doesn't know already and what can be assumed?
I'm entwined in this pretty regularly and have found the non-cop input useful.