Police departments learn how to better control news.

Richmond, VA. - The fragmented world of information dissemination is taking a literal turn toward law and order.

Police departments across the country and beyond are learning how to put their own spin on the news they create, and for three days this week, dozens of those departments are in downtown Richmond learning the tricks of the trade.

"You can't afford not to (be online)," Rick Clark, the police chief in Galax, said Monday during a session of the sixth annual Social Media, the Internet and Law Enforcement conference at the Omni Hotel.

This year's event is being hosted by the Richmond Police Department. Monday's sessions were opened to the media, but most of the rest of the conference will take place out of view of the public.

The presence of media on Monday was made clear during a strategy session featuring Clark, Richmond Police Chief Bryan T. Norwood and Roanoke Police Chief Chris Perkins. The attendees were reminded of the media and advised to act accordingly, particularly in regard to the questions they asked the panel of chiefs.

Most of the session focused on the daily grind of creating and maintaining presence on popular websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and what that effort meant to the departments. Several vendors were also in the room, including one company that offers a service that allows police departments to monitor Twitter feeds for criminal activity.

The use of social media is a way "we try to tell our own story," Norwood said. "It's a real positive way to interact."

Sessions today and Wednesday that are closed to the media and the public include "Multi-Agency Knowledge Sharing Through Social Media," "The Dark Side of Facebook: Online Radicalization and Security Implications for Law Enforcement" and "The Social Tightrope Between Building Community Participation and Being Big Brother."

Who gets to tell the truth was the central theme of the day.

Clark said he was lucky to work in a town without a daily newspaper or television station. He said he thought his department's website was his town's news source, at least on police information. Galax, which is in the far southwestern part of the state, has a population of 6,983. The Police Department's Facebook page has 2,620 "likes."

Having a police station as the only source of news is even worse than having cable TV news which masquerades as something different than a political agenda dressed up in pseudo-debate. The guarantee of fair, balanced and truthful information sounds something like what the police division in Milwaukee says about their own website The Source, which claims "to give you the genuine, unfiltered information from us."

Norwood said his department is often on the defensive because it's in the position of reacting to news. Changing that, he said, will allow his officers to better handle their work.

Posting news online, he said, would allow the department "to right a story that's out there, to correct a lean."

All of the chiefs talked about the police division in Milwaukee, which created a department-controlled "news" channel. On its website, The Source claims "to give you the genuine, unfiltered information from us."

Gene Lepley, a former television news anchor who's now the spokesman for Richmond police, said a similar approach could be used here in the near future.

Answering a question addressed to Norwood about how social media has changed the way the department interacts with traditional media, Lepley said: "We want to be the go-to source for information."

Norwood said the Richmond Police Department has created its own production studio so it can create videos.

The Richmond Police Department is taking their news management to another level by creating its own video production studio. Perhaps for instructional purposes they can visit some of the many propaganda videos put out by the federal government, justifying everything from Japanese internment camps to the latest fake bogeyman tied to al Qaeda or whatever other terrorist group fits the mold. But now that a bipartisan congressional bill has been crafted which would make it perfectly ok to use government propaganda on its own citizens, we can only expect a full rollout.

The three-day conference is being put on by LAwS Communications, a Massachusetts-based company. This is its sixth Social Media, the Internet and Law Enforcement (SMILE) conference. The gatherings have been held across the country.

Police appear to be lamenting the fact that they are put into a defensive posture and forced to react to the news and to events. This role is by design, however. They are there to protect and serve -- which means to respond when called upon by the public who is their boss. When the role of police becomes one where they are crafting media plans and leveraging new technology that can easily distort or spin facts, then they are not "enhancing their reputations through transparency and accountability;" they are doing exactly the opposite.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2012/sep/11/tdmain01-police-group-trying-to-learn-how-to-bette-ar-2194744/
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/09/police-learn-propaganda-tactics-at.html#more

LAwS Communications:
LAwS Communications has been providing interactive media advice to law enforcement since 2005.
Open Source communication technologies available today allow organizations to efficiently gather and distribute information like never before. LAwS Communications works with law enforcement professionals to help make sense of the tools available, help agencies craft a plan and social media policy as well as provide the training needed.

LAwS Communications can help law enforcement organizations not only understand why an agency should take advantage of social media technologies, but also how to leverage these vast resources.
The agencies that are effectively using these tools are shrinking their communities, improving communication with citizens and enhancing their reputations through the transparency and accountability. Other agencies are developing sophisticated methods for investigation, crime solving and prevention. Police departments, in particular, have an opportunity to better educate their communities about who they are and what they do and to therefore increase and improve communication with the public they serve.

LAwS Communications properties include The SMILE (Social Media the Internet and Law Enforcement) Conference, the internationally known blog – ConnectedCOPS.net, and the C.O.P.P.S. Social Media Method.

LAwS Communications is located in Newbury, Massachusetts. It is a subsidiary of Stevens & Associates Inc.
http://lawscommunications.com/

Police Security News:
http://policeandsecuritynews.com/