Crime Reporting

Police forces are similar to other public sector organisations in that they are sometimes nervous of what the media is going to say about them and reluctant to engage with it.

But while other public sector organisations do not often give you good stories, this is not the case with the police.

They have a regular stream of crime stories where they are looking for witnesses or have done a good job in a successful conviction. Because of this, police forces are unusual for the public sector in that to do a good job of covering them you really need to have a good relationship with them.

Positive and Negative Stories

Persoanlly, I think that on the whole you are unlikely to get enough good negative stories about the police to make it worth risking your relationship with them.

This is because if you get on well with the police then they can give you tips offs about stories you might not otherwise get, such as information on celebrities getting arrested. If they trust you, they can give you extra access to make a good story that bit better.

For example, when a local man became the first person in the UK to be convicted for knowingly transmitting HIV, Lambeth Police were confident enough in their relationship with me that they gave me an interview with the officer in charge of the investigation. This meant I got an exclusive on a big national story.

However, it is important not to get so cosy with the police that you are not prepared to criticise them. In fact, some journalists believe that making more of an effort to maintain a good relationship with the police than you would, say, with the local council is going to far.

Ben Goldby, senior reporter on the Sunday Mail, said: "Any advice to steer clear of criticising the Police is both dangerous for the principles of local journalism and damaging to young reporters."

Developing a Relationship With the Police

Make it clear to the police as early as possible that you want to have a good relationship with them.

Tell them you are happy to treat them well in terms of giving them positive coverage, downplaying any negatives and being willing to keep a story they do not want to run out of the paper (as long as it is not a big story). But they need to know that in return for this you expect access to investigating officers and tip offs about interesting incidents.

However, it is also important that you make it clear that if there is a damaging story about the police then you will run it and the story will be critical of them.

The key thing to get across is you want to be dealing with police officers rather than press officers as often as possible. Make it clear that you will never run a negative story about the police as a result of something a police officer tells you and that you will always respect anything that is said off the record.

Having this sort of conversation should mean you can develop a relationship that benefits both sides.

Police Jargon

Lots of walks of life have their own jargon, but police jargon is particularly annoying. While scientists use language that is difficult to understand, the police often just sound odd. They talk about "male adults" rather than "men" or "adjacent to" rather than "next to".

Take a zero tolerance approach to this kind of jargon. With police officers, tell them when their language sounds odd and explain to them why you would like to change it. With press releases, phone up the press officer and tell them to turn the quotes into plain English.