How the police became a media outlet

BitDepth#1461

EARLIER this year, former SBCS lecturer in media Abbigail Ajim successfully defended her thesis for a PhD at the University of Leicester.

The subject? The mediatisation of local policing, an 80,000-word analysis of how the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) first engaged, then wholeheartedly embraced telling its own story.

Ajim shared the key findings from her thesis for review.

From the perspective of the senior leadership of the police service under CoP James Philbert in 2009, the enhancement of the TTPS Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) was an opportunity to change the pervasive narrative of a police service overwhelmed by rising crime.

The mediatisation of the TTPS began, in Ajim's thesis, after Crime Watch, an independent crime reporting show, managed to win approval from Philbert to accompany officers and feature them speaking on behalf of the service.

The resulting productions, Ajim posits, "lifted the veil of secrecy around policing activities through the seductive use of actuality or 'real' footage which can be mistaken for cinema-verité because of its lack of a script or paid actors."

In these airings of police activities, she writes, officers "use violence and dispense the law fairly, swiftly and competently."

This mutually beneficial relationship ended when host Ian Alleyne contested a political seat in October 2013.

CoP Dwayne Gibbs did not approve a proposed replacement, so it wasn't until 2014, under the second term of acting CoP Stephen Williams, that Beyond the Tape was launched.

This new programme benefited from the experience of Insp Alexander, who would be a presence on the show until February, when current CoP Erla Harewood-Christopher, expressing concerns about the show, removed him as co-host.

But over this period, after almost 15 years of continuous broadcasting of police-managed information about crime, the TTPS had acquired an awareness of the power of media, broadcasting and widespread communication.

The TTPS also established its own audiovisual unit (AVU) in 2016 under Williams, following early efforts under Hilton Guy.

In 2018, the TTPS amplified its outreach with officers operating as "media ambassadors." Ten to 15 officers at the rank of sergeant were trained to appear on radio and television to speak on behalf of the TTPS.

Just two decades before, the only statements from the service were either delivered by or on behalf of the CoP, so this constituted another evolutionary change in police communications.

The media ambassador's role was desirable not just for exposure, but for the grooming for advancement it appeared to represent.

One ambassador interviewed by Ajim explained, "The role of the ambassador takes priority, except you have to go to court or something else that is more pressing."

Ajim notes that these expanding roles seem to create an imbalance in the journalism process. Hosts and presumably reporters identified as difficult by either being combative or unwilling to stick to TTPS talking points will talk to officers instructed to fall back on strict readings of the law.

The work of the AVU would be amplified under former CoP Gary Griffith, who authorised an increase in the unit from four officers to 23 and emphasised direct engagement with the public using social media, with an emphasis on Facebook.

One member of the unit told Ajim of Griffith, "Our work doubled or more so tripled because he would have been requesting many different things. His impact was – how Trinidadians would say it? He ran the engine hot!"

In this environment of content generation, the TTPS was not just a subject of news interest, it had evolved into an efficient and engaged generator of news on its own.

"We try to give the media something that is readily consumable," a member of the CCU told Ajim.

"If they can take our media release and read it verbatim on air or they can copy and paste it into the layout of their newspaper, that is what we want. We don't want where they have to fight to find the information or rewrite it in any way."

Responding to a question about this, Ajim came back with her own questions.
"This practice raises a huge ethical and professional dilemma for the news media," she wrote.

"Do these press releases posted on Facebook make crime reporting redundant? How should these press releases be used (by media houses)? Can they be used in tandem with active crime reporting and their content explicitly marked as being police generated?"

Over the course of two decades, the TTPS has legitimately sought to tell its version of the crime story, but in a case of hopefully unintended consequences, it has also dramatically weakened the case for independent, expensive investigations of crime that proceed without police sanction.

Mark Lyndersay is the editor of technewstt.com. An expanded version of this column can be found there