Oliver Wilkinson Dissertation

10, 488 words
‘Nothing to see here’: a study of the
relationship between the police and the press
Oliver Wilkinson
27/03/15
Supervised by Deborah Wilson
Report submitted in part fulfilment of the examination requirements for the award of BA (Hons)
Journalism (or insert programme title if different), awarded by the University of Lincoln.

Abstract
This study examines the past, present and future state of the relationship between
the police and the press; an important relationship that has proved controversial in
recent times. The constabulary and the news media are both key organisations in
society, helping to keep the public protected and well-informed.
Current and former members of the press and the police have been interviewed to
further the understanding of the relationship in terms of how communication between
both parties has proved both beneficial and detrimental in the past.
The study analyses recent crises such as the phone-hacking scandal and the
Hillsborough disaster, and the effect these sorts of challenges have had on the
relationship between the police and the press. Such incidents have contributed to the
police’s increase in public relations strategies such as press offices and media
training.
Results of the study suggest journalists and law enforcers disagree on various
aspects of the relationship, the role of police press officers particularly. While both
agree the uncovering of any unethical practices are important, both organisations’
views differ on the amount of access owed to journalists in such exposés. The
reduction of access given to reporters has made the investigative role of the
journalist more necessary in holding law enforcers to account, with the police
focussing more on their own channels of communication through public relations.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for taking time out of their busy schedules to be
interviewed as part of this study:
• Andrew David
• Andrew Trotter.
• Clive Chamberlain.
• Dan Robinson.
• Dick Holmes.
• Fiona Scott.
• Ian Gordon.
• Ian Hitchings.
• Jon Grubb.
• Nick Davies.
• Roger De Bank.
I would also like to thank my personal tutor Deborah Wilson for her guidance and help
towards the completion of this dissertation.

Contents
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………….1
METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………………5
LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………………………..10
CHAPTER ONE: THE POLICE AND THE PRESS……………………………...17
CHAPTER TWO: A CHALLENGING RELATIONSHIP………………………. 24
CHAPTER THREE: THE WAY AHEAD………………………………………...32
CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………39
APPENDICES……………………………………………………………………..43
BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………...….….86

1
Introduction
The police and the press are necessities in modern society and are both considered
foundations of a healthy, democratic civilisation. The public have a right to be both
protected and well-informed, meaning journalism and law enforcement have often
crossed paths since their establishment. Their reliance on one another has helped
form a relationship, one that ought to be based on trust and professional integrity but
has instead been damaged by recent crises.
The media is considered the primary source of information on crime for the majority
of the public; therefore it has a large role to play in the representation of the police.
Consumers are drawn to crime news because of its tendency to shock and evoke
emotion, thus meaning members of the police are valuable contacts and sources for
journalists. The police, meanwhile, have often used the press as both an
investigative resource and an outlet for appeals for information, public warnings and
the publishing of any information that may help a case.
The relationship between the police and the press has suffered as a result of various
recent incidents. Cases of potential corruption within the police, such as Plebgate
(BBC News, 2014) and the Helene Adele story (Wood, 2014), along with incidents
such as Hillsborough (Conn, 2012) and the phone-hacking scandal (Keeble & Mair,
2012), have caused a breakdown in communication and trust between the media
and the police. The unethical practices of some reporters have resulted in the police
investing heavily in public relations strategies such as press officers, on top of
providing media training for authoritative figures within particular forces.

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Such developments have increased the police’s influence on the dissemination of
information on crime, while reducing the investigative power of the press. In the past,
journalists and police officers would share stories after a long day at work but the
apparent breakdown in trust means that reporters now have to rely greatly on press
releases and quotes from media trained individuals, as opposed to those directly
involved in the investigation at hand.
The majority of information now stems from press conferences and statements from
the police, meaning exclusives, along with the specialist crime reporter with multiple
contacts in the police, is a rarity. The police are now able to spin news stories in their
favour and therefore censor what information is made available to the public. This
can be potentially misleading and biased, as proven by the Stephen Lawrence case
(Hope, 2014) or the death of Ian Tomlinson in the G20 London riots (Lewis, 2009).
These are just two of many recent incidents in which the police have attempted to
‘cover up’ deviancy through manipulating the media, and thus the public.
The police are the embodiment of law and order in society, which means they are
under constant scrutiny from the press, presented on one side of the scale between
good and evil. Journalism is a business, and crime news is selected and presented
in relation to whatever news values and angles increase ratings and pander to
audiences. The relationship between the police and the press is extremely important
and mutually beneficial when used ethically and responsibly, yet this connection has
been abused by both parties, thus having an impact on the effective dissemination of
crime news.
The research for this study is UK based, consisting of semi-structured interviews
(Winstanley, 2009) with journalists – both general and those specialising in crime –

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as well as editors, police officers, police commissioners and those working in public
relations. These are all key figures in the relationship between the police and the
press, presenting some interesting accounts on the past, present and future of this
association. Both current and former journalists, along with employees of the police,
have been interviewed on a one-to-one basis to ensure a more accurate, balanced
assessment of how this relationship has changed in recent years.
The dissertation will look at the nature of the relationship between the police and
journalists, with chapter one outlining the advantages and disadvantages it has to
both parties. The opening chapter will discover how the relationship began and what
values it is founded on, determining how balanced the association between both
organisations is. This will also discover how the relationship has changed between
police units and journalists, which will lead into the second point of the study.
Identifying the pivotal crises that have shaped or warped what was once considered
a healthy relationship between the police and the press will be the focus of chapter
two. This will involve discussion and analysis of the phone-hacking scandal (Keeble
& Mair, 2012) the Mark Duggan murder (BBC News, 2011), and various other
detrimental challenges faces by both the police and the press in recent times.
Discussion will surround the causes of these cases, while investigating the reasoning
behind the responses of both the police and the press.
The study’s concluding chapter will move onto the future of the police and the media,
and whether there is hope for a healthy relationship in which both parties can benefit.
It will use the main literature available on crime news, as well as the views of those
involved, to conclude what is to be expected of the communication between law
enforcers and reporters in the coming years.

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Overall, the aim is to provide a modern outlook on how the police and the press
utilise one another, taking any crises into account. Collating the views of those
interviewed, coupled with research into existing analysis from the likes of Chibnall
(1977) and Casey (2011), will form a conclusion on the current state of the police
and the media and what key incidents have shaped these circumstances.

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Methodology
Research was strictly based in the United Kingdom so as to generate a more specific
argument surrounding the more controversial issues surrounding organisations such
as the Metropolitan Police and the British tabloid press.
The primary research for this study entailed interviews with current and former
journalists as well as editors and those involved, or previously employed, within the
police. This decision was made in an attempt to fathom a more balanced view on the
past, present and future state of the relationship between law enforcers and the
British press.
The following people were interviewed:
• Andrew David, former BBC Radio journalist and current editor of Siren FM
radio station, face-to-face interview
• Andrew Trotter, former lead for media and social media for The Association of
Chief Police Officers. Trotter worked in the police for 45 years, with various roles
including Chief Constable of the British Transport Police. He also assisted in the
Leveson Inquiry, advising on the relationship between the press and the police,
phone interview.
• Clive Chamberlain, former Chairman of the Dorset Police Federation and
police constable for 33 years, phone interview.
• Dan Robinson, senior reporter at the Nottingham Post, with previous
experience at the Oxford Mail and Henley Standard, email interview.

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• Dick Holmes, spokesperson and senior press officer for Lincolnshire Police,
phone interview.
• Fiona Scott, television producer and director who has made documentaries
and news programmes for BBC and ITV, email interview.
• Ian Gordon, former reporter for The News of the World and The Sun, email
interview.
• Ian Hitchings, true crime author and investigative journalist, email interview.
• Jon Grubb, former editor of Lincolnshire Echo and Scunthorpe Telegraph,
phone interview.
• Nick Davies, investigative journalist for The Guardian and author of Flat Earth
News, email interview.
• Roger De Bank, former reporter at Leicester Mercury, face-to-face interview.
The interviews were conducted via private means of communication, either in the
confidentiality of the interviewee’s office, or via their personal telephone number or
email address. This was to ensure those interviewed felt comfortable and relaxed
enough to share any potentially sensitive information or anecdotes, which are
common in the area of policing and journalism. The study used semi-structured
interviews (Winstanley, 2010), meaning there was not one set of questions for each
interviewee. Instead, a range of topics were discussed surrounding very few set
questions, allowing room for tangents and stories personal to the experiences of the
individual. Semi-structured interviews (ibid) suited the study as it allowed room for
questions specific to the interviewee’s role in the relationship - asking a police press
officer and a journalist completely the same thing would be counter-productive.

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Those interviewed were carefully selected because of the key role they have, or
have previously had, in their particularly field. For example, Andrew Trotter was
chosen as a consequence of the role he played in the Leveson Inquiry, providing
individual officers with what he believes to be clearer guidelines on police-media
relations. Investigative journalist and author Nick Davies was interviewed as a result
of his book, Flat Earth News, which unearthed various malpractices of those in both
the police and the press.
Both general and specialist crime reporters were interviewed as their previous
experience could determine whether the police prioritise one over the other. This
was also the reasoning behind contacting various types of journalists, from
broadcast to print; freelance to investigative. The list of interviewees included a
television documentary director, a true crime author and investigative journalist and a
radio reporter, in addition to local and national newspaper journalists.
This study included an interview with someone who had previous editorial
experience as the majority of decisive moments in terms of what gets reported on
and publicised comes from this particular position in a newspaper. Jon Grubb was
able to provide an insight into the contacts and experience he developed from his
time as editor of the Lincolnshire Echo and Scunthorpe Telegraph.
Interviewing a press officer and those whose duties involve communicating with the
press was essential because these roles in the constabulary entail direct contact with
journalists. This meant they have the most experience, along with the most accurate
understanding, of the relationship from the police’s interpretation.
Interviews were recorded with a dictaphone as this ensured the most accurate
account of what had been said. This meant that the permission of the interviewees

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was needed. Upon replaying and transcribing the interviewee’s words, the resulting
qualitative data (Winstanley, 2010) was gathered through collating correlating and
directly conflicting points and arguments from each person.
Mawby (2014, 2) used a different approach to study police-media relations, opting to
use the Leveson Inquiry as a case study for analysing the means in which the police
enhance public trust in the constabulary. This stimulated more legislative data based
on existing policies and previous historical literature; as opposed to the personal
insight this dissertation offers (Mawby, 2014, 4).
Huey and Broll’s method of studying police-media relations in Canada involved
interviews with those in the police to determine their perspective on the media (Huey
& Broll, 2012, 384). This resulted in a fairly one-sided interpretation of the
relationship, whereas this study borrowed a similar technique in terms of the
methodology, but instead aimed for a more balanced argument by interviewing those
from both organisations. This dissertation also differed from Huey and Broll’s as it
focussed solely on the news media, as opposed to the general media discussed in
their research.
This particular analysis into the relationship between the police and the press would
be of more academic value if a larger amount of members of both organisations
were interviewed. More former journalists and police officers were interviewed
because those with a current position in the police or the press tend to be very busy
working to their own personal deadlines. This meant that the study consisted of more
points reflecting on the relationship, as opposed to looking to the future.
A potential solution to this issue would be with the help of an official national body,
such as the Association of Chief Police Officers or the National Union of Journalists.

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Contacting members of the police or the press through these conduits would have
opened up the study to a broader range of interviewees, and thus a wider, more
accurate set of results.
Another method that could possibly encourage more of those contacted to contribute
to the study would be to offer a less time consuming method of participation. This
could be a survey, as opposed to an interview, although results would suffer at the
hands of a more generalised set of questions.

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Literature review
There has been a significant amount of research and analysis on the performance of
both the police and the media and the roles they play in society. However, a large
amount of existing literature on the relationship could now be considered dated,
given the amount of crises journalists and law enforcers have faced in recent
years.
Keeble and Mair’s (2012) analysis of the phone-hacking scandal is one of the more
recent studies on the relationship between the police and the press. They identify the
defining similarities between journalists and law enforcers in that they are
both ‘seekers of the truth’, giving power to the powerless. In order to be an efficient
policeman or journalist you are required to remain suspicious, while
both occupations are ‘a necessary attendant to democratic life and to a civil
society’ (Keeble & Mair, 2012, 1). Their study claims the relationship between the
two is forged on the understanding that they need each other, and is balanced
between the press’ desire for a regular stream of stories and ‘the requirements of the
police for positive publicity in its political struggle for resources, the development of
police careers, and crime prevention and law enforcement.’ (Keeble & Mair, 2012,
308)
Muir (2013) believes the recent prosecutions of unethical journalists and police
officers has ‘plunged relations between British police forces and crime reporters into
a deep freeze.’ However, he remains hopeful that some sort of communication will
continue due to the fact ‘the involvement of the press is vital for solving crime at both
national and local level.’

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Barak’s (1995) research on the social construction of crime news relates to this
theory of the police and reporters needing one another, as he labels it a symbiotic
‘interrelationship’. ‘The media cite sources in order to underscore their own authority
and maintain objectivity’ (Barak, 1995, 98), and ‘reciprocally, because sources are
cited as the authoritative voice in regard to crime news, source organizations appear
more credible.’ (ibid) This can be applied to how the police respond to the media, in
that any quotes or information they provide will have the objective of promoting the
force.
Chibnall (1977) has an opposing view on the apparent ‘balance’ in the relationship
between the police and the press, describing it as ‘asymmetrical’ given the constant
inferior position of the journalist. ‘The reporter who cannot get information is out of a
job, whereas the policeman who retains it is not.’(Chibnall , 1997, 155) Reiner (2007)
agrees with this theory, labelling the relationship as either ‘hegemonic’ or
‘subversive’. Supporters of the former perspective focus on the police’s power to
choose and filter information, condemning reporters to the ‘receiving end of a
constant trickle or flow of propaganda…which simply cannot be ignored because it is
vital to their professional life.’ (Chibnall, 1977, 203) However, advocates of the latter
theory ‘perceive the media as a threat to morality and authority, and fear that media
representations undermine respect for the police service.’ (Newburn et al, 2012, 156)
Schlesinger and Tumber (1994, 7) claim ‘There has been a decline in public trust in
police effectiveness since the 1980s’. They argue that the conflict surrounding the
police’s role in society, along with their exposure to public opinion ‘has led them to
develop means of image management’ (Schlesinger & Tumber, 1994, 107).
Sampson, on the other hand, believes it is the police’s duty to not only protect people
from crime, but the fear of crime, and in order to do this effectively they have to be

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‘open and truthful’ (Sampson, 2002, 53) and ‘quickly learn the attitudes and
behaviours necessary to gain and maintain public confidence’ (Sampson, 2003, 1).
Cook and Sturges’ research acknowledged how police forces have had to ‘transform
themselves into demonstrably accountable organisations providing a value-for-
money service to the public.’ (Cook & Sturges, 2009, 307) This ‘culture of
promotionalism’ (ibid) is helped by the influence of both the media and public
relations. The Metropolitan Police were the first to establish a press office in 1919
(Hitchings, 2015), but now all 43 police forces in England and Wales have
‘departments with specific responsibility for media relations, staffed primarily by…
former journalists or marketing specialists’ (Cook & Sturges, 2009, 408).
McGovern and Lee (2010) state the rising commercial and financial pressure on
news outlets has decreased the amount of specialist crime journalists, with general
reporters having a detrimental effect on the dissemination of crime information
(McGovern & Lee, 2010, 445). The two researchers also argue police-media
relations have shifted from ‘information reportage’ to ‘sophisticated media
management.’ (McGovern & Lee, 2010, 447) Law enforcers have had to ‘adapt to
failure’, knowing that crime rates are extremely difficult to change (McGovern & Lee,
2010, 457), which has led the police to increase their image management techniques
in a conscious effort to be more ‘customer focused’ (ibid).
Goldsmith’s (2013) research suggests the rise of social media has increased ‘the
public demand for information about policing’ (Goldsmith, 2013, 255), and likens this
to the amplified interest in ‘reality’ police programmes on television (ibid). ‘Round the
clock media demands for information have resulted in certain police officers
becoming public figures… due to their frequent appearance on various media’ (ibid),

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therefore the press’ need for a more transparent police has raised the level of public
scrutiny incurred on the constabulary. This implies ‘good public communication is
linked to operational effectiveness’ (ibid) while media criticism of law enforcers can
pose risks to ‘police integrity, effectiveness and reputational standing.’ (Goldsmith,
2013, 256)
BBC London home affairs correspondent Guy Smith conducted a personal
dissertation on the relationship between the police and the press, in which he states
the role of public relations in the police is ‘to promote trust and confidence in the
service and defend its reputation’ (Smith, 2013, 4). Smith used a combination of
surveys and interviews to conclude that the police are fairly content with their level of
cooperation with crime journalists, but found this does not apply contrariwise.
The media is the ‘first line of defence and offense’ for the police, according to
Chermak and Weiss (2005, 503). The two researchers claim the police’s identity as
‘the most visible of all criminal justice institutions’ (Chermak & Weiss, 2005, 502)
means they are usually the ones to blame in the eyes of the public for rising crime
rates. ‘Strategically disseminating some types of information and blocking inquiries
for other types of information’ (Chermak & Weiss, 2005, 502) can therefore be vital in
terms of manipulating public confidence in the police. Chermak and Weiss highlight
the importance of the role of journalism to therefore ‘penetrate into areas of the
organization that other members of the public are forbidden to explore.’ (Chermak &
Weiss, 2005, 503)
A more recent study by Chermak et al (2014) has raised doubts over whether the
police can ‘control how the media represent policing generally and the police
organization, especially when a negative incident comes to the attention of

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reporters.’ (Chermak et al, 2014, 154) The researchers do, however, believe ‘the
prevailing view is that this relationship is symbiotic’ (ibid), given the benefits both
organisations have from communicating with one another. Their study states that a
journalist needs to ‘cultivate relationships with accessible sources’ (ibid) because of
the ‘bureaucratic constraints on news production, such as the amount of time
available to produce a story’. (ibid)
Mawby and Worthington (2002) believe communication has always been integral to
police investigations, but the constabulary are now using ‘practices usually
associated with the worlds of commerce, business and the private sector’ (Mawby &
Worthington, 2002, 860). This is referring to the police’s public relations strategies,
which are a consequence of ‘the mangerialist climate of modern policing’ (ibid) along
with ‘the converging pressures of a highly mediated society’ (ibid), according to the
two researchers. Technological advancements subject them to increased scrutiny
but also provide more opportunities ‘to communicate messages and promote their
public image.’ (Mawby & Worthington, 2002, 859-860)
Wally Olin, an expert in public relations, was employed by the Metropolitan Police in
1988 to alter both internal and external attitudes towards the force. His company,
Wolff Olins, was hired for £150,000 at a time in which the Met was experiencing a
‘corporate identity crisis’, raising concern about its relations with the public,
government and media. He found that negative attitudes towards the police can
cause low morale in particular forces, while a bad public image can result in a lack of
confidence. (Schlesinger & Tumber, 1994, 108) If Olins is correct in his observation,
then the media have the propensity to inflict a negative effect on law enforcement.

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In March 2010, The Telegraph revealed that the UK police were spending £30million
on public relations, which works out at ‘enough to pay for an extra 1,000 officers on
the beat’ (The Telegraph, 2010). Baker et al (1983) touch on the effectiveness of the
police’s recent approaches to public relations in their research, discovering that it
is ‘all but impossible to suppress crime, but reported crime can be suppressed with
relative ease.’ (Baker et al, 1983, 1) Therefore, journalism is potentially, and
arguably, being turned into a channel of propaganda and self-promotion for the
criminal justice system due to the increased influence the police have in the
dissemination of crime news. This leaks into Nick Davies’ (2008) critical nature
towards modern day journalism, or ‘churnalism’ as he now calls it. ‘Churnalism’ is
what Davies describes as the constant, lazy recycling of pre-packaged information
such as press releases from organisations such as the police.
The press, along with their own avenues of communication such as websites and
social media, provide the police with ‘an opportunity to explain their objectives to a
mass audience’ (Jones, 1995, 27). Jones argues press officers have a tendency to
‘put presentation before policy’ (Jones, 1995, 28), thus increasing the responsibility
of journalists to conduct their own investigative research.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s review on relations between the police
and the media found that there have been 314 investigations in the last five years ‘in
relation to inappropriate relationships with or unauthorised information disclosure to
the media.’ (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, 2011) Not only this, but of
the 44 police forces in England and Wales, only three ‘provide any policy or
guidance around the integrity of relationships between staff and the media’. The
review recognises the positive effect of public relations strategies within the police,
but does not ignore the sense that they have ‘brought a tension to the relationship

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between police forces and the media.’ (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary,
2011)

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Chapter One: The Police and the Press
Journalism and the prevention of criminal activity have entwined since the creation of
The Bow Street Runners, otherwise known as London’s first professional police force
(Rawlings, 1995, 96). The Bow Street Runners were founded by the Fielding
brothers in the 18th
century, despite the reluctance of parliament to offer funding
(ibid). Henry and John Fielding used the press in a strategic way, which would now
be classed as public relations, to stimulate a moral panic among the public (ibid).
This pressurised the government into forming an organisation to prevent the
apparent rise in crime; an organisation we now call the police.
The police and the press have since continued to rely on each other due to their
responsibility to the public. Communication has proved important between these two
organisations in helping one another out, with the police supplying the press with
comment and updates on incidents and the press publicising police activity and
anything else that can help an investigation. Some level of cooperation is also
required to avoid the prevention of criminal justice, with the police sometimes asking
the press to avoid publishing some details that can potentially prejudice a case.
Andrew Trotter, former lead for media within the Association of Chief Police Officers,
says the media play a major role in solving crime (Trotter, 2015), both in response to
the police and on their own investigative accord.
This relates to the significance of the BBC’s coverage of the Soham Murders, when
local school caretaker Ian Huntley murdered two ten-year-old girls. He was
interviewed by the BBC and Amanda Marshall, a civilian who knew what Huntley
was capable of having lived with him in Grimsby, recognised him and rang the

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police, thus raising the suspicions of those handling the case (Ahmed, et al. 2003).
The Bichard Report 2004 (Daily Mail, 2004) subsequently followed his conviction, in
which the media pressurised the legal prevention of those with previous sexual
convictions working alongside children.
Another instance displaying the healthy role of the media in criminal justice would be
the arrest of Mick Philpott, who killed six of his children after purposively setting fire
to his home (Dodd, 2013). The police’s suspicions of Philpott led them to arrange a
press conference under the hidden motive of psychoanalysing him (BBC, 2013),
therefore using the press as a means of building up evidence against their main
suspect.
Roger De Bank experienced a similar case while working for the Leicester Mercury,
around the time DNA testing had just been developed. Two young girls were
murdered and, after exhausting the conventional methods of policing, the police
decided to try DNA sampling for the first time.
‘The media coverage of this breakthrough frightened the killer so much that he
asked a mate to do his sample. The police picked this up and that is how they
solved the case. So it was the publicity that caught the murderer, not the DNA
itself.’ (De Bank, 2015)
Jon Grubb says the police are ‘a lot more corporate now’ (Grubb, 2015), while
Nottingham Post senior reporter Dan Robinson brands press officers as ‘barriers to
proper information.’ (Robinson, 2015) Radio journalist Andrew David commented on
how it was a lot easier to stimulate relations with individual officers when he initially
embarked on his career in journalism. ‘The relationship we have with the police is
more distant and impersonal than it used to be’ (David, 2015).

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Lincolnshire Police press officer Dick Holmes says press offices have increased the
professionalism in terms of communication, as opposed to the more informal yet
personal means in which the police used to engage with the press.
‘Officers used to socialise with the press, making for a bit of an incestuous
relationship. We are now on a much more professional footing in which we
have policies where you do not accept a bottle of whisky at Christmas or free
tickets to football matches.’ (Holmes, 2015)
The rise of social networking, coupled with the introduction of 24 hour news, has
added to the pressure on reporters and the police, with a need for an increased flow
of information from both parties. This, along with the increased cynicism of our
society, has increased public bodies’ vulnerability to scrutiny, according to Jon
Grubb, who, along with Andrew David, believes the money invested in public
relations is the police’s way of trying to regain some control.
Andrew David believes the police try to ‘hide behind technology’ (David, 2015),
despite the rise of social media reducing their control over their public image. He
recalled a time in which he witnessed a plane crash near East Midlands Airport,
before the police had chance to usher him away from the scene.
‘I phoned it in to my BBC colleagues, who had a terrible job trying to get the
police to actually admit it had crash-landed, so we eventually had to rely on a
tip-off from an AA patrolman. This would never happen now as we would have
pictures coming through the internet. In some sense, the police have lost
control because they have disengaged the personal relationship they once
had with the press.’ (ibid)

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Social media has helped introduce citizen journalism, where the public are finding
out the latest news via online discussion and images. Albeit not always reliable, this
has increased the amount of channels in which citizens can find out about crime.
This makes it more difficult for the police to keep tabs on what is publicly known
about specific cases, therefore underlining the importance of media training and
press offices within particular forces.
Clive Chamberlain, former Chairman of the Dorset Police Federation, says press
officers are necessary to ‘counteract some of the negative stuff people post in the
24/7 society we now live in.’ (Chamberlain, 2015)
Andrew Trotter, however, would have preferred to see investment in alternate
aspects of public relations, not media training or press offices:
‘The strategic issue relating to the media and crisis management needs
further attention. Somebody needs to think strategically when you have got a
major incident affecting the reputation of your force. Silence is not an option.’
(Trotter, 2015)
Such investments could have reduced the pressure on police over the apparent
damage caused by recent crises involving the press; crises which have possibly
discouraged some individual police officers from wanting any sort of relationship with
a reporter.
This lack of trust stems from most officers ‘tarring all journalists with the same brush’
(Grubb, 2015). Investigative journalist and author Nick Davies shares this view,
insisting crime journalism would benefit if ‘police stopped regarding all journalists as
liars’ (Davies, 2015) and overcame the ‘fear of their words getting twisted’ (ibid). De

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Bank, on the other hand, sees this untrusting nature as an inevitability given the
environment police officers and journalists operate in.
‘An officer will deal with criminals until everybody becomes one unless proven
otherwise. Likewise, whenever we, as journalists, do an interview we are
thinking to ourselves: ‘Can we trust this person?’ We are very much alike in
that respect, which is why you get this sort of relationship.’ (De Bank, 2015)
The current hostility among police and journalists was proven in 2008 with the arrest
of Milton Keynes Citizen reporter Sally Murrer, who faced three charges of illegally
gathering intelligence from a police officer (Charalambous, 2008). She was ‘strip-
searched, left in a cell overnight, vigorously interviewed and told she could be facing
life in jail’ (ibid), but the case collapsed after the police acted in breach of her rights
as a journalist. The modern, more corporate side of policing, in which the media is
seen as a potential threat, means law enforcers have ‘no compunction in trampling
over the rights of those who play such a pivotal role in our society’ (ibid). This
senseless, business-like approach was again on display when Northumbria Police
nominated themselves for a PR award for the means in which they handled with the
death of 16-year-old Hayley Adamson in 2010.
Most of those involved in the press and law enforcement acknowledge the
inevitability behind press offices and media training within the police, particularly
when looking at the bigger picture of modern day journalism. But differing views do
exist on the ways in which public relations strategies are utilised by the police, with
former crime reporter Fiona Thompson claiming it depends on whether the press
officer sees their role as proactive or reactive.

22
Press officers obviously bring a certain bias to the information they provide to the
press and public as their job is to enhance and maintain the reputation of the force.
Press officer Dick Holmes believes image management is essential because ‘most
people do not come into contact with the police so they form their opinions by what
they see in the press.’ Most reporters believe press officers can be healthy for crime
journalism, but it depends on whether the increased flow of material is worth
sacrificing the balance of the information.
Nick Davies, a senior reporter for The Guardian, has also had mixed experiences
with police public relations, implying bad press officers tend to be ones that ‘work for
bad senior officers’ (Davies, 2015). This sort of inconsistency suggests a possible
lack of defining guidelines in relation to their role in the police, with some working to
facilitate relations with the press and others acting to keep them at bay.
‘There are some good press officers who make sure reporters are well-
informed and are willing to work closely with us in order to get information into
the public domain. Unfortunately, there are some bad ones who think it is fine
to conceal or distort important information.’ (ibid)
Journalists and the police have conflicting views on one another’s responsibilities
within the relationship; a disagreement formed out of the press and the constabulary
failing to understand the opposing organisation’s role in society. The police’s main
priority is the protection of the public and maintaining the confidence citizens have in
the criminal justice system, which they believe is done best through their own
methods of releasing information on crime.
The introduction of press offices means some units will only communicate with the
press in times of need, or when legislation requires them to. Most police officers feel

23
relationships with individual reporters are no longer necessary with the introduction
of press offices; therefore investigative journalism is now more important than ever in
unveiling any potential police deviance or incompetence, which relates to the crises
discussed in chapter two.

24
Chapter Two: A challenging relationship
There has been increased debate surrounding the relationship between the police
and the press in reaction to a variety of recent revelations and incidents. It has been
said that these incidents have involved unethical practices and relations between
certain journalists and individuals involved in the police.
The most recent and defining case in the association between the police and the
press is the phone-hacking scandal unearthed by The Guardian in 2009 (Keeble &
Mair, 2012). This revealed The News of the World hacked into the phone of Milly
Dowler, a teenage girl who had gone missing in 2002, accessing and deleting
voicemails, therefore giving her family false hope she may still be alive (Davies &
Hill, 2011). The paper’s real intentions were ‘not to act in the best interests of the
child but to get credit for finding her and thereby sell the maximum number of
newspapers.’ (Dearden, 2014)
The ensuing outcry resulted in the Leveson Inquiry, which not only discovered
hundreds of phones were hacked by News International journalists, but certain police
officers were also accepting payment for releasing information to reporters. The
inquest has led to a more formalised approach from the police when communicating
with the press; an approach that offers ‘a more open audit with the publication of
named individuals rather than off-the-record briefings’, according to Andrew Trotter
(2015), who assisted Lord Justice Leveson in the inquiry.
Multiple members of the press and the police were arrested during the hacking-
scandal, something that has since discouraged individual police officers from
speaking to journalists, according to Jon Grubb. However, Clive Chamberlain

25
believes the post-Leveson guidelines have made for clearer communication between
the police and the press, thus facilitating ethical relations between both
organisations.
Cases of police deviancy have not only raised tension between the police and the
press, but also concern from the public on the effectiveness of the constabulary. The
increased influence of public relations has made it a lot harder to report on and find
out about wrongdoings from the police. This was the case in the ‘Plebgate’ scandal,
in which Government Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell allegedly called police officers
‘plebs’ after being refused to leave Downing Street with his bicycle (BBC News,
2014). The subsequent media response left Mitchell with no other decision but to
resign from his post (BBC News, 2012), despite police corruption playing a large role
in the retelling of the event.
A supposed eye witness account confirming the police’s version of events turned out
to be from PC Keith Wallis, who was not even there at the time (Marszal, 2014).
Three officers who interviewed Mitchell in the aftermath claimed he did not give them
a full account of the incident, however, the transcript of the recording proved he
‘outlined in some detail the circumstances of the Downing Street incident’ (Watt,
2013). This shows the power of the police in controlling the flow of information,
forcing a man to lose his job through the manipulation of the media and misleading
the public.
These high profile cases are usually investigated by the Independent Police
Complaints Commission (IPCC), who were forced to admit they ‘may have
inadvertently given misleading information to journalists’ (BBC, 2011) during their
investigation of the death of Mark Duggan. The 29-year-old was killed by specialist

26
firearm officers in 2011, with the media primarily reporting he had opened fire at a
police officer, which turned out to be a false impression given by the IPCC’s initial
reports (ibid).
The supposedly independent body’s reaction to Faisal Al-Ani’s death while in police
custody was also heavily criticised. Al-Ani, who had a history of mental illness and
heart problems, was handcuffed then restrained, punched, and beaten with a baton
by the police, who were unaware he was having a psychotic episode (Guardian,
2009). The IPCC originally stated he had ‘arrived at the police station and walked
into the custody suite waiting area where he collapsed’ (ibid), yet footage published
by The Guardian revealed he was carried by officers, already bruised and limp.
Despite the Crown Prosecution Service deciding there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to
press charges, the newspaper’s multiple legal requests to release the video
evidence (ibid) helped uncover the truth, something the IPCC had failed to do.
Fiona Scott, who won a national award for her crime documentary ‘A Very Fortunate
Man’, believes it is her role as a journalist to ‘expose lies, hypocrisy, corruption and
crime – even if that means upsetting a valuable contact in the police’ (Scott, 2015).
Nick Davies confirmed this responsibility saying: ‘Misbehaviour by the police has to
be exposed, because they have such power: their wrongdoings can ruin people’s
lives.’ (Davies, 2015)
Andrew David says that uncovering constabulary misdemeanour, albeit necessary, is
very difficult due to the barriers modern day press offices have introduced to policing.
He believes the only way it would be viable would be with the help of a ‘whistle-
blower from the inside’ (David, 2015). Press office manager Dick Holmes, however,

27
feels it is the responsibility of the police to be open in cases of corruption or
unprofessionalism.
‘If an officer turns out to be corrupt, we have to be honest, say what has
happened and then apologise. And if we make a mistake we have to put our
hands up and do our level best to ensure it does not happen again.’ (Holmes,
2015)
Jon Grubb says the introduction of press offices, coupled with the less personal
relationship the police now have with the media, means journalists are more
comfortable with criticising law enforcers. While working for the Gloucester Citizen,
he would often meet up with the local Detective Sergeant and he revealed upsetting
this contact would cost him ‘20 stories in the next year’ (Grubb, 2015), which
discouraged him from publishing anything critical of him.
‘If you do not have a relationship with them, what are you losing by slagging
them off? Ironically, press offices were meant to improve the police’s
relationship with the press, but in some cases have actually done the
opposite.’ (Grubb, 2015)
Reports from the press can frustrate the police due to some journalists’ propensity to
be sensationalist, pushing for ratings as opposed to the truth. The spotlight on police
deviancy often shocks readers into further media consumption, which Andrew Trotter
believed were The Daily Mail’s intentions in using the headline ‘Incompetent Police
and Dishonest BBC’ from his report on the police raid of Cliff Richard’s house.
‘After complaining to the newspaper, I got a three-page response saying because I
admitted the police had made mistakes, they must be incompetent. We have to deal

28
with reporters dealing with this sort of hyperbole and drama, which damages the
trust in the relationship.’ (Trotter, 2015)
Clive Chamberlain recalled a similar case, in which the BBC revealed children were
being tasered by the police. By ‘children’, they meant those under the age of
eighteen, which Chamberlain felt should have been made clearer in the article.
‘If you have six of what the BBC described as kids but what I would say are
potentially violent yobs, against one officer, I can understand why a taser
would be necessary. This sort of journalism is sensationalist and
irresponsible.’ (Chamberlain, 2015)
The press have hindered major investigations in the past, like the Hungerford
Massacre (1987) for example, in which Michael Ryan murdered 16 people, including
his own mother, before committing suicide (Tweedie, 2012). The media response to
the event suggested Ryan had an unhealthy relationship with his mother, with The
Guardian describing him as a ‘Mummy’s Boy’ (Dawson, 1994, 335). The tabloids
also implied he had a radical obsession with firearms and the film Rambo, despite
little-to-no evidence suggesting this (ibid). The police were hampered during the
investigation by unethical practices of certain journalists, some of whom gained
access to victims’ homes through disguising themselves as serving officers (Crime
and Investigation). In addition to this, the press helicopter was rumoured to get in the
way of the police’s, allowing Ryan to kill more innocent civilians (ibid), although Ian
Gordon, a local reporter covering the incident, has a conflicting memory of the event:
‘By the time the local press – and certainly the national press – had been
made aware of the early shooting, Ryan had finished his killing spree. There

29
is so much mayhem in these sorts of incidents that general measures of
interacting with the police go out the window.’ (Gordon, 2015)
The disorder entailed in Hungerford meant that neither the police nor the press had
much time to negotiate and delegate with one another, which could explain the
differing accounts of the incident. The more concerning revelations are associated
with the media’s inaccurate and unfounded explanations of Michael Ryan’s actions,
producing reports based solely on rumours and speculation.
The Sun’s response to the Hillsborough disaster (BBC, 2009) was another case of
what has been described as irresponsible and sensationalist reporting. The
newspaper published: ‘The truth’ as their headline, with subheadings accusing
Liverpool supporters of urinating on dead bodies, pick-pocketing people and beating
up a police officer giving the kiss of life (Gibson, 2004). These allegations were
obtained from Whites Press Agency, which used the police and members of
parliament as sources (O’Carroll, 2012). The Taylor Report, launched by Prime
Minister at the time Margaret Thatcher, subsequently found no truth in what The Sun
had published, and instead discovered a lack of police control to be the main cause
of the disaster that killed 96 people (Slack et al, 2012). This means the police have
had the potential to misinform the media since at least 1989, but a lack of
responsible and investigative journalism has assisted such an influence. If The Sun
investigated these allegations themselves, upon realising the clear bias from their
sources, these inaccuracies would not have been published.
Another incident in which the press were rumoured to have affected the work of the
police was the murders of serial killer Fred West (Hough, 2010); an investigation
covered by journalists from across the globe, including Jon Grubb. He remembered

30
seeing reporters, particularly from the national press, buying up witnesses during the
case.
‘When you see the worst excesses of chequebook journalism, it is difficult for
even the local paper to operate on the basis of strong trust from the force.’
(Grubb, 2015)
This raises the argument that the tabloid press are having a negative impact on the
reputation of local and ethical journalists in the eyes of the police. A force’s
relationship with the local press is arguably more essential as these are the reporters
they can rely on for help in investigations, while tabloid journalists are alleged to
sometimes pander to their audience through sensationalism and political agendas.
Clive Chamberlain says some newspapers have a ‘clear bias’ (Chamberlain, 2015)
to the point where ‘you can read the same story written by different journalists and it
seems like a separate incident.’ (ibid) Andrew Trotter also accuses the press of
ignoring the ‘huge strides the police have made over the years’. (Trotter, 2015)
‘The police are in a far better position now in terms of its recruits, training and
approaches to corruption. Most young cops do not know what you are talking
about when you mention the likes of Plebgate and Hillsborough.’ (ibid)
Officers often feel there is a focus on rising crime in the media, ‘with the implication
the police are unable to contain it’ (Schlesinger & Tumber, 1993, 113). Andrew
Trotter’s allegations that the press are neglectful of good policing suggests news
producers must ‘move on’ from incidents such as Hillsborough (Kay, 2012) and
Plebgate (BBC, 2014) in order to give this post-Leveson approach a chance to
succeed. The police have been open in terms of the guidelines they have introduced

31
and the press must respect the boundaries modern press offices bring to the
relationship. Those involved in the phone-hacking scandal (Keeble & Mair, 2012)
and other crises are currently receiving their punishment, and it is now down to
current journalists and police officers to act with professionalism and integrity to
prevent similar crises from happening again.

32
Chapter Three: The way ahead
If the past has proved anything it is that the relationship between the police and the
press is prone to develop and change. The concept of journalism, coupled with the
responsibilities of a journalist, has broadened in relation to the advanced technology
at our disposal, but this has not altered the role of a reporter. The roles both the
police and journalism play in society have not changed since their creation – they are
there to serve the public and will continue to do so in the future. It is the ways in
which both organisations utilise each other, or fail to utilise each other, that has
changed over the years, helping to shape the current and potential position of the
relationship.
The Leveson Inquiry has led to increased guidance for the police in terms of how to
handle the media (National Archives, 2014), but this implies the press are a threat to
effective policing that needs diluting through guidelines, training and press offices.
The pessimism surrounding the future of the relationship, such as predictions that
the recent breakdown in relations will gradually get worse (Grubb, 2015), largely
stems from journalists, with the police remaining hopeful of a working, effective
association with journalists. This confidence could arise from the efficiency of public
relations, which now act as a facilitator for individual police officers dealing with
reporters.
Andrew Trotter, for example, thinks the relationship will ‘steadily improve’ (Trotter,
2015), while Clive Chamberlain believes it will carry on in the same fashion; a
fashion he believes is competent (Chamberlain, 2015). Their views suggest the
police are keen to ‘work together’ with the press as they understand how helpful
journalists can be as an investigative resource and promoter of police activity,

33
particularly with the push for more funding. However, Trotter expressed a need for a
stricter code of ethics for journalists, as he feels the Editor’s Code of Practice is often
ignored (Trotter, 2015).
The apparent requirement of legislation is a view shared among various
individuals in the police, including Dick Holmes, who says: ‘We need to work
together. If it does not work on a voluntary basis then parliament will have to
work towards some sort of legislation that ensures we all abide by the rules.’
(Holmes, 2015)
‘The media are beset by more law and regulation than they have been at any other
point in history’ (Phillips, 2013, 1). The Leveson Inquiry raised doubts over the self-
regulatory position of the press and has since helped form a more independent royal
charter. Journalists, when asked, now have to prove that any information gained was
done without a breach of a confidentiality agreement or committing a crime (Phillips,
2013, 3). Reporters are now less protected in the eyes of the law, and any more
legislation could reduce their important role of acting in the public interest. The
abolishment of anonymous sources will also ‘have a dangerously chilling effect on
the news’ (Hitchings, 2015).
‘What if a detective is aware of corruption or malpractice among his or her
superiors? Would they really want to risk telling a journalist about it now that
all communications are noted and recorded?’ (ibid)
Freelance crime reporter Ian Hitchings points out that it has always been against the
law for the police to take money for information and a lack of legislation was not to
blame for this unethical behaviour. Sir Robert Mark, former Metropolitan Police
Commissioner, issued police-media guidelines 40 years ago in the hope it would

34
remove corruption in the force. It is a question of whether these guidelines were
ignored or simply ineffective enough to fulfil their aims. If it is the former explanation,
then there is not much hope for the post-Leveson guidance (Hitchings, 2015).
Getting a job in the police is now more difficult than ever before (Trotter, 2015),
which demonstrates the improved quality of policing we now have. Such
developments, along with the consequences of recent crises, have reduced the
probability of unethical practices between law enforcers and journalists reoccurring.
The press will benefit from the improved quality of police officers, but the
constabulary are similarly reliant on editors and producers employing ‘honest’
journalists, as opposed to some of the ‘crooked’ reporters that have previously
‘slipped through the cracks’ and damaged the integrity of their ethical colleagues
(Trotter, 2015).
An unethical relationship is not desirable for the majority of those involved in the
police and the press, and misconduct in instances such as the phone-hacking
scandal will continue to be a minority. Andrew David believes ‘most journalists and
the police want a relationship which works symbiotically, but the system does not
want it to be like that.’ (David, 2015)
‘The police force is a great institution with hundreds of years of history and I
would like to think the British press is the same. As a journalist, I want a
proper, trusting relationship with the police, whether it is an individual officer
or a press office.’ (De Bank, 2015)
The press and the police criticise each other for failing to apprehend one another’s
requirements and responsibilities, but working together can help improve this
understanding. This is something Fiona Scott discovered while filming a

35
documentary in which she followed an officer who was a specialist at ‘chasing down’
paedophiles. This was ‘a very sensitive area of policing with a force known for not
being media friendly’ (Scott, 2015), but Fiona and the officer are still in touch today
after spending time learning the challenges of one another’s occupation.
Clive Chamberlain approves of these kinds of exclusive insight, stating: ‘At the end
of it, somebody will be convicted and the journalist will have a very good piece that
highlights, from beginning to end, the problems the police face and the hassle they
get.’ (Chamberlain, 2015)
Local journalist Andrew David, on the other hand, believes this type of journalism is
‘hyper-staged’, with the police having an underlying motive in offering this sort of
access (David, 2015). He labelled it ‘a show for the big guys from London and
Manchester’ (ibid), in which the national journalists get catered for while the local
press are neglected.
These instances, albeit less beneficial to regional journalists, infer the outlook for the
police’s relations with broadcast journalists appears more hopeful than theirs with the
print press.
‘This relationship will be strong as there is nothing better than having an
officer speaking, or being seen in vision, to instil confidence. We react well to
seeing a human being and the police are visibly upholding something which
helps our civilisation exist: the rule of law.’ (David, 2015)
This furthers the notion that broadcast journalists are more valuable to the police in
terms of image management. The requirements of television and radio producers to
be more balanced, coupled with the near impossibility of words being twisted in a live

36
interview, means police officers will continue to be willing to cooperate with
broadcast reporters.
The police have suffered funding cuts in recent times, which have made effective
policing more difficult. These cuts are to continue in the next year with the Home
Office confirming a 5% reduction in funding between 2015 and 2016 (BBC, 2014).
Clive Chamberlain believes the constabulary need to be more open in regards to the
challenges they now face, in the hope it will allow the public to realise some of the
media’s criticisms are unfair.
‘The police are not revealing the struggles they have from the finances being
cut. If they were completely open about this, maybe the public would learn the
police cannot always do what they want them to.’ (Chamberlain, 2015)
Chamberlain did, however, admit revealing which areas had fewer officers on duty
would leave them vulnerable to increased criminal activity.
The recent wave of cyber-crime and fraud has reduced the amount of police officers
on the street (Trotter, 2015), despite the increased demands from the press and the
public. The historical inquiries into sex abuse are also using a lot of the police’s
resources, while new investigations are still ‘coming through the door’ (ibid).
Nick Davies predicts the police will remain fairly uncooperative with the press
because a life without journalists makes their job seemingly easier.
‘The police, like the government, continue to prefer to work with the maximum
secrecy they can invoke. It makes it so much easier for them to do whatever
they want to do – good and bad – if they can minimise public scrutiny. It is

37
wrong that they do it, but they will always be this way unless somebody stops
them.’ (Davies, 2015)
The press are less dependent on the police than ever before in the gathering of
information on crime, and will continue to be this way with new social networking
sites and technology constantly arriving. Jon Grubb says the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 has also increased the independence of journalists, as the press are now
‘legally entitled to a whole range of crime statistics they were not able to get before.’
(Grubb, 2015)
Most reporters have come to terms with the fact they no longer have access to off-
the-record briefings, and instead use the police as a means of confirming the
information they have obtained from their own investigative methods. Journalists do
not want to ‘transmit the line of the police’, says Roger De Bank (2015), who, along
with Andrew David, stresses the importance of journalists making their own
enquiries, something press offices cannot prevent them from doing. The public are a
journalist’s most valuable contact, as proven by a car crash Fiona Scott reported on
in the early 1990s. Scott (2015) revealed just as many people called the local paper
as did the police and ambulance services in the aftermath of the collision that killed
five children in the middle of a housing estate.
This specific case shows the general community acknowledge journalism to be as
important as public bodies such as the police. It also proves reporters and the police
have to work alongside one another, making it fundamental some communication
remains to ensure journalists do not hinder the emergency services.
The current tension in the relationship has developed due to a combination of police
press offices being understaffed and shorter deadlines for journalists, says

38
Nottingham Post reporter Dan Robinson (2015). With the lack of funding the police
now receive, along with the increasingly multimodal nature of journalism, this
pressure on individuals in police public relations and the press will only increase,
foreshadowing a moment in which the prolonged strain on the relationship takes its
ultimate toll:
‘I have noticed that each paper I have worked at has monitored the police
press office to see how well they respond to them. At some point, complaints
will be made to the top level so there could be serious issues for
communication between the two, unless they resolve their differences.’
(Robinson, 2015)
Most journalists speak of a breakdown in relationships with individual officers, often
citing press officers and recent crises as a causal factor. It is hard to ignore the
possibility that the association between the police and the press has to be redefined
as a result of this apparent lack of personal relations, with journalists having to
operate through police press officers similarly to how they would with other large
corporations. By definition, a relationship is ‘the way in which two or more people or
things are connected’ (Oxford Dictionaries), and the police and the press do share a
connection, but this is no longer in any way personal.

39
Conclusion
A relationship has to remain between the police and the press as the two
organisations often find themselves reporting on, or policing, the same incidents. The
nature of this association is much more formalised than in previous years, with their
duties coinciding solely in matters that need policing and making aware to the public.
Members of the police and the press no longer unite in these circumstances, but
instead go down their separate means of investigation. Most police forces’ only
priority in communicating with journalists is to abide by legislation such as the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Information Commissioner’s Office), while
ensuring no harm is done to the execution of criminal justice.
The link between the police and the press is now mostly occupational, meaning any
connection is impersonal, based solely around their overlapping duties to the public.
There is a clear channel of communication predominantly involving those trained to
cooperate with the media. In the future, the majority of exclusive crime stories will be
achieved off the back of the investigative skills of the individual reporter, not from the
relations he or she has within the police. With the lack of individual relationships, the
constabulary now approach the news media as a collective source, providing press
releases and press conferences to all journalists (Schlesinger & Tumber, 1994, 176),
as opposed to prioritising those they may or may not have a relationship with.
The police continue to get frustrated by what they believe to be an increased
sensationalist agenda from tabloid newspapers (Chamberlain, 2015) (Trotter, 2015).
But this could relate to a lack of understanding in terms of the business model of the
national print press. More people are obtaining information and updates via social
media and online channels, therefore incurring a damaging effect on the majority of

40
newspapers’ readership. The competition is amplified in national news, with some
arguing newspapers are there for infotainment (Nisbet, 2001), selling the news to
their audience, as opposed to informing them in the public interest.
The public are drawn to sensationalism and shocking news and editors pander to
this hunger. Determining why citizens are attracted to this sort of journalism, as well
as the effects it has on society, are two possible channels of further study in
gathering a more thorough understanding of the relationship between the police and
the press.
Law enforcers are said to ‘police by consent’ in Britain (Holmes, 2015), meaning the
public’s trust is essential in the prevention of criminal activity. It is then clear why the
constabulary invested so heavily in the likes of media training and press offices. This
approach, which has been labelled as ‘corporate’ (Grubb, 2015) by some journalists,
is a matter of image management. It can be likened to the ways in which a company
would try to mute any negativity about their produce. The public’s safety and the
retention of societal order is the police’s responsibility, therefore the effect the
advancement of public relations has had on the press is not of the concern of the
police.
There has to be doubt over whether the more corporate methods of the police are
working in terms of improving the public’s trust in them, particularly as the media
continue to be critical of the ways in which particular units handle situations. Grubb’s
argument that the press are more likely to criticise the police as a result of the
breakdown in relations (Grubb, 2015) is one that could be further explored through
determining whether or not this critical nature has increased or reduced since the
introduction of press officers within the constabulary.

41
It has been said the media have a major part in the solving of crime (Trotter, 2015),
but this role is now increasingly passive because of the lack of personal relations
within the police. No longer are reporters asked to join police investigations as an
exploratory resource; their role has since been reduced to publishing material such
as witness appeals and evidential footage for the police. Certain reporting may help
to solve crime, but these instances are more likely to be inadvertent, such was the
case in the BBC’s coverage of the Soham Murders (Ahmed, et al. 2003), or the
influence of a press conference in the conviction of Mick Philpott (BBC, 2013).
Social media has no doubt made policing more difficult. The wave of cybercrime,
along with the further channels of communication the internet brings, means the
responsibilities of the police are increasingly demanding and the constabulary are
more open to scrutiny than ever before. This is another potential topic of extended
study, which would acknowledge the difficulties the police face in terms of
maintaining public trust in an increasingly questioning and well-informed society.
The media are clearly still a conduit between the police and the public which help to
shape citizens’ understanding of the effectiveness of the constabulary. Therefore,
most law enforcers agree journalists need to be ‘looked after’ as well as monitored
by press officers (Trotter, 2015), especially as they have the potential to help the
police’s fight for increased funding. However, the press and the police have differing
views on the role of press officers, with journalists accusing some of being reactive
instead of proactive (Scott, 2015). This allegation accuses some individual press
officers of acting to protect malpractices or deviance in the police, rather than acting
to enabling a relationship between the police and the press.

42
There was a stage in which the relationship might have been considered ‘symbiotic’
(Barak, 1995), but this is no longer the case. The police and journalists could, and
practically are, operating independently of one another and there is a progressive
lack of dependence between the two organisations. This would appear to originate
from the ‘barrier’ of police public relations. Press offices have facilitated the police to
communicate strictly their own interpretation of events through their websites and
twitter feeds, while disengaging the previous relations reporters had with individual
officers.
Both parties in the relationship will maintain their current independence. Law
enforcers will carry on prioritising their own methods of releasing information, and, if
this more corporate approach facilitates effective policing, they will continue
releasing it this way unless legislation tells them otherwise.

43
Appendices
Appendix 1
Nick Davies, 03/03/15, via email.
It depends on the press officer. There are some good ones: they make sure they are well informed,
and they are willing to work closely with reporters in order to get important information into the public
domain. Unfortunately, there are some bad press officers who work for bad senior officers, who think
it is fine to conceal or to distort important information (as I discovered painfully when Scotland Yard
persistently attacked The Guardian for publishing the truth about the phone-hacking saga).
I think it would be a great help if officers at every level could be persuaded to accept that the press
and the public have a right to know what they are doing; that secrecy should be invoked only on those
rare occasions when it is genuinely operationally essential. It would help too if police stopped
regarding all journalists as liars - a lot of them are simply scared that if they talk to a reporter, their
words will be twisted. Sadly, there are still a few reporters who will do that. But most won’t.
Misbehaviour by police has to be exposed, because they have such power: their misbehaviour can
ruin people’s lives. That could have the short term effect of alienating some police units. So be it. It
will also have the effect of making police units respect the news media.
I am afraid that the police, like government and the state generally, continue to prefer to work with the
maximum secrecy that they can invoke. It makes it so much easier for them to do whatever they want
to do - good and bad - if they can minimise public scrutiny. It’s wrong that they do it, but they will
always do it unless somebody stops them.

44
Appendix 2
Jon Grubb 04/03/15, via phone.
I trained at a journalist training college in Haystings. My first job was at Buckingham Advertiser, I
worked my way up into assistant editor there and, after 3.5 years, left to join the Gloucester Citizen as
assistant news editor. I was also head of content, which put me in charge of news and feature
content.
I then went to the Nottingham Post, initially as head of content, where I had features, news, and
photography staff of about 110. I was then promoted to deputy editor. I got my first editor job after that
at Scunthorpe Telegraph and, after three years there, I joined the Lincolnshire Echo.
The biggest crime story of my career was at Gloucester when I covered the Fred West case. It was
incredibly exciting as a journalist to cover a story of a serial killer, but at the same time a lot of the
details of the crime were very gruesome so it was difficult mentally to cope with some of the aspects
of the story that were most harrowing.
The Fred West case was unusual in that the town was absolutely under siege by press from all over
the world. We had TV news from America, Switzerland and Italy, as well as a couple of journalists
from each of the national papers, all with chequebooks buying up witnesses. They were fairly unusual
circumstances really. I would say our relationship with the police was okay but it’s fair to say that
generally most officers tar all journalists with the same brush. When you see the worst excesses of
the national press and chequebook journalism it’s quite hard for even the local paper to operate on
the basis of strong trust from the local force.
In terms of now, in comparison to when I started in journalism 25 years ago, I would say we’re far less
dependent on the police than ever before. When you’re talking about crime statistics, rather than the
day-to-day incidents, we used to have to rely on the police giving us those stats. Now we have the
FOI so the press are legally entitled, as are the public, to a whole range of crime statistics we weren’t
able to get before. So we’re less reliant on the police for those kind of top line numbers but when it
comes to individual nitty gritty crimes we never got an awful lot of that from the police anyway. The
vast majority of information the press tend to get about the details of big crimes or of incidents on
crime, tend to come from readers and the public. You’re reliant on the police confirming that the

45
information is correct, but there’s never really been a time, at least not in my experience, when the
police were massively open with the press, telling them everything that was going on at all. That’s just
never been the case. Of course now they operate on their twitter feeds and websites so quite a lot of
the time the police give details of a crime on their own website before they’ll tell the press about it.
There’s a kind of access to a flow of information and tip offs about stuff that go on around the police –
they’ve always been the major source of information for the press anyway.
I would say that where things are different is that it was a lot easier to foster relationships with
individual officers ten or 20 years ago than it is now. The world has become a lot more corporate than
it used to be and I think police forces have also become more corporate. It used to be that you’d have
a detective sergeant or DI that you knew quite well and you’d go out for a pint and talk about what
was going on. You don’t get that now. The nature of those individual relationships has changed, partly
because the world of policing has become much more corporate, but also things like the recent case
of the News of the World journalists being prosecuted for bribing police officers and that kind of thing
have just made officers massively nervous about having a relationship with a reporter in case it could
be deemed as inappropriate, even if it wasn’t. Sometimes it’s about what seems to be the case rather
than what is the case. So I think the flow of information and where it comes from hasn’t necessarily
got worse or changed a lot, but I do think those individual relationships have changed.
When I started as a journalist, nobody had PR offices, the police certainly didn’t, All of your contact
was with the Duty Inspector or a key senior officer at a particular station. So the introduction of public
relations officers and executives certainly has put up a barrier between journalists’ ability to get to
know serving officers.
At the end of the day you might get a bit more information than what you would do ordinarily, but at
the same time you only ever get the information they want to tell you. So you’re going to get a very
one-sided view of crime or policing in any particular patch so I suppose it’s a question of whether you
think a little bit of an increase in the flow of information is worth sacrificing the balance of that
information.
I think the general public have lost a great deal of trust in the kind of people that previously would’ve
been considered trustworthy professionals. The public are far more questioning of MPs, teachers,
doctors and police officers than they were 25 years ago. I think that as that trust has diminished, and

46
the questioning nature of the public has gone up, the less people trust the official light given out by
these organisations.
I should imagine the way they’re looking at it is that they’re trying to regain that trust. I’m not sure
they’re doing that but that’s why they’ve invested in public relations. I just think it’s one of those things
in society that’s very difficult to change. We’re just a lot more cynical as a society than what we once
were. As a kid, if you were caught up to no good, you’d get clipped round the ear by your local bobby
and sent on your way, if a local bobby clipped a kid round the ear now he’d probably find himself in
court or sued for damages before the end of the week. We just live in a different society now.
Ironically, one of the things that’s happened, which I believe is fed into that lack of trust, as the
relationship between serving officers has become more distant, journalists feel much more able to
criticise the police because if you don’t have a relationship with them, what are you losing by slagging
them off? In my day, when I worked at Gloucester, I had a DS in a city police station who was kind of
a mate. We used to go out for a pint occasionally and he’d tell me stories, but if I ever came across a
story that was directly critical of him, I’d be very reluctant to run that story because I knew it would
cost me 20 stories in the next year because he’d be hacked off with me and wouldn’t speak again. If I
didn’t know anybody at that police station and I got a story about wrongdoing or something else, why
would I not run it? I’ve got nothing to lose. Journalists have become more likely to be critical of big
organisations because press officers have put distance in the relationship between people in those
organisations and journalists. So ironically, press offices in lots of cases were meant to improve the
relationship between the press and their organisation, but have actually done the opposite.
I would imagine a fair amount of stories come from FOI requests, there’ll be a lot of stuff that the
police release themselves so if there’s been a rape and they have a photo fit of the person they might
release that, there’ll be tip offs from the public like ‘my shop was broken into last night’ or a charity
shop saying their collection bin has been nicked or members of the public saying their street has been
cordoned off by police but they don’t know what’s going on. The public, FOIs and the police releasing
the material themselves would make up the mass bulk of crime stories. Those off diary tip offs and the
things nobody else knows anything about don’t seem to happen as much as they used to, and that’s
because the relationship between individual officers and reporters just doesn’t exist anymore.

47
I don’t hold out much hope for the future of the relationship between the police and the press to be
honest. I think the criminal behaviour of some of our colleagues in the national press have not been
helpful because that obviously tends to make the relationship between journalists and the police look
suspicious. I don’t see any change to this kind of corporate, one size fits all, vacuum packed,
branded, corporate approach from police forces and that’s pretty much a barrier between journalists
and the individual serving officers. I have to say, I don’t see that relationship becoming much more
positive any time soon.

48
Appendix 3
Roger De Bank 03/03/15, face-to-face interview.
DNA as we know it today was developed at Leicester by a scientist called Alex Jefferies. They were
looking for somewhere to test it out. Two school girls were murdered, one after the other, so they
were fairly sure it was somebody in the community. The murderer was a man who luxuriated in the
name of Colin Pitchfork. They tried the conventional ways of looking for vehicles and that sort of thing
so when they exhausted those methods the Home Office suggested that they talk to Jefferies as it
sounded like a good case to test the DNA. They started taking DNA samples from people, it was very
raw at this stage. What happened was that it frightened Pitchfork so much that he asked a mate of his
to do his sample. They picked this up and that’s how they got it. So the first DNA case was not done
by the sort of ‘Eureka’ moment in that it worked by reverse engineering. So it was the publicity of the
DNA that caught the murderer, not the DNA itself.
That was the kind of difference in those days, the press, if you were trusted, worked a lot closer with
the police than they do now because people can’t be trusted in the same type of way. Most
honourable journalists still operate like that but the problem is, because of all kinds of incidents over
the years, these barriers went up, and I don’t blame them actually. If you were told information like
‘This is what we’re going to be doing on Wednesday etc can you just not do anything with it at the
minute’, we wouldn’t. You would get a briefing on where they were truthfully, and then another briefing
as to where they were as far as the murderer was concerned.
I went to a plane crash at Nailstone, which is just outside East Midlands airport, it was a mail plane.
They hadn’t shut one of the doors properly and it was knocked off by one of the lower wings at the
back. It was smashed up and I went out to it as I was news editor at the time. The whole village was
sealed off as they thought it was IRA. When I got to the barriers, there were police officers on duty
there, and I could see a friend of mine who worked for ITN, along with a couple of others. I got to the
barriers and to my amazement they opened the barriers for me, so I went in and got quotes from the
villagers. One of the policemen came over and asked me if I was an officer, and I told him I was a
journalist. He said he remembered seeing me in a police patrol car because he was on motorway. As
it turned out, he was referring to the time I did three shifts as a feature with Rick Messom. That was
the way it was in those days. If you got something like that, it just stopped everybody. There wouldn’t

49
be a press conference until they were good and ready to hold one, whereas nowadays, if they don’t
hold one everyone is kicking off and going haywire and there’s information going out that’s incorrect.
As soon as we entered the digital age, you couldn’t have police officers wasting time doing that, so
that’s where the modern press office really came into its own. Now, the amount of press sources there
are, they just get overwhelmed and, to me, that’s why they have these press officers. The police are
more political these days as well.
Press offices are an inevitable thing for crime journalism. It doesn’t stop you from doing all of your
own enquiries. A good journalist should know most things from their own enquiries that they’ll be
making. You’ve still got all the other avenues such as neighbours, the local priest etc and the police
can’t chuck you off that. They can stop you from going in a certain area because it’s evidential but
they can’t stop you from going to the local shop, they can’t stop you from going to the local church, so
all of that stuff carries on as it is.
In a lot of ways, the relationship is probably fairer now, although I hate to say that. I was news editor
and I did emergency service calls for about four years, so we were still speaking to the police, building
up relationships with them, but I suspect the relationship is a lot more remote now.
There had to be a professional level of trust. Some people may have called it too cosy but you got to
learn a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t necessarily know before. I would tell policemen not to tell me stuff
because, if it got found out, they’d get disciplined. Sometimes they’d be over helpful, and if it was
career-threatening I’d say ‘Don’t tell me that’. As far as I’m concerned, if they want to tell me after I’ve
told them not to, that’s fine, but I’m not going to let them unwittingly get trapped as that’s not fair. That
sounds cock-eyed for a journalist, but I’ve got standards.
I don’t want an unethical relationship with the police because the individual police officer and the
individual journalist both get nailed by the Chief Constable or the Editor tut. It needs to be ethical
otherwise it’s worth nothing. We’re talking about a police force with hundreds of years of history, it’s a
great institution, and I’d like to think the British press is a great institution as well. If you can’t do it
ethically, I’m not prepared to do it at all.

50
I’ve heard colleagues receive a phone call from officers they’d interviewed asking why they including
certain things they’d said and you don’t want that. You want a proper, trusting relationship with them,
whether it’s an individual officer or a whole press office.
Most of the time, the press office is there to take the weight off. Sometimes, officers wouldn’t care
about telling you either for political reasons or they genuinely cared about letting the public know
something that would be helpful to the enquiry. Most officers are very mistrustful of the press because
there is no payback for them if they talk to the press. It’s more a case of the environment that they’re
in – they don’t deal with nice people all that often. They’re dealing with thugs, criminals of various
descriptions and murderers. They don’t actually deal with a lot of nice people. A police officer will
come on shift and spend eight hours dealing with these sorts of people, so everybody becomes one
of these people until proven otherwise. As a journalist, it’s what we do as well. Every time you do an
interview with somebody, you’re saying to yourself ‘Can I trust this person, does he know what he’s
talking about?’ So we’re very much alike in that respect, which is why you get this sort of relationship.
The problem with that is the standard police officer in any force hates people who do dodgy stuff
because it reflects on everybody. They spend a lot of time trying to route that out and at the end of the
day it’s indefensible if you’re doing something wrong as a police officer. Virtually any police officer
would say the same. Of course, there are miscarriages of justice but generally there’s a weight of
evidence there before they embark on that sort of stuff. But it’s one of the big challenges of the job.
The police will never not tell you anything.
I think social media has drastically changed the relationship between mankind. The police are
tweeting everything now and you get a much better service. Other news organisations are also
tweeting so it’s a huge change. You used to have to ride up there in a car, not knowing what was
happening.
The relationship is not balanced because we’d like to know so much more but there is such a thing as
evidence and police officers not wanting to pervert the course of justice. It’s not up to them to tell us
stuff. We don’t want everything from them as it’s obviously going to be a bit different from what we’re
putting in the paper. If they give us a reasonable outline of what’s going on, that’ll do.

51
In the world of today, you have to have press offices. The number of officers has been cut but they
don’t have to mess about with interviews so they can concentrate solely on the job. The increase in
public relations helps organisations to be able to respond properly in the environment they now
operate in.
Nowadays, you are talking to a lot more press officers than police. We’re dependant on them but they
also need us. Every time they have a big incident we can do a lot to inform the public. They’re fighting
for funds and need us for a sort of promotion.
They only tell us what they can justifiably tell us. Journalists have to be investigative, they can’t just
transmit the line of the police, they need to transmit their own line.
If we find stuff out, they look at it as it’s on public display. I’ve got no problem helping them if it
contributes to catching a murderer, in fact I’d be delighted.

52
Appendix 4
Clive Chamberlain: 02/03/15, via phone.
I was a police constable for 33 years, mainly working as a community police officer, but my last
eleven years I was chairman of the Dorset Police Federation so a lot of my time was spent liaising
with the press and putting up bits and pieces while doing interviews for radio, television and
newspapers. I retired a year ago but I’m still writing a column for the National Police Federation
magazine every month as well as doing social media for them.
I just write an opinion piece every month. In many ways, I still get information out there; it’s quite
interesting as I’m less restricted on what I can say now because I’m not in the job anymore.
It means I’m not restricted by regulations so if I’m unhappy about things or if I believe that the current
cuts are causing problems I can discuss it. When I was in the job I couldn’t really say what was going
on because there was always a fear of being disciplined by telling the truth. The press departments in
the police tend to want to just put out a load of positive PR and carefully laundered stuff rather than
telling it how it is.
I think they’re trying to put a positive spin on all the campaigns but what they’re not doing is saying
that they’re struggling because the finance has been cut so much. I suppose in a sense, if they were
completely open that they struggle sometimes maybe the public would’ve learned earlier that you
can’t always do the things you want to because of the current resources. The fear is, if you talk about
specific areas lacking resources, people could target that because they realise fewer police are on
duty.
There are two trains of thought really, one is that we live in a 24/7 society now where a lot of what
people hear and read isn’t just in newspapers, but also on social media and that sort of thing so I think
it’s important that you have people who are able to counteract some of the negative stuff but I also
think there’s been a lot of money spent on PR, while our primary role is to police.
I have done interviews as a police officer when there has been a local issue. They went through a
period where it was only the press office or a senior officer who would speak to the press but they
gave some local officers media training to speak to the local press. They were obviously careful to not

53
say anything that could prejudice a case that’s likely to be ongoing and remained sure that you don’t
give out too much information. I was more wary when I was a beat officer speaking to the press
because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to say anything that could prejudice the case. I was
also careful not to give any personal thoughts as I’m there to update them on something that’s
happened which is pretty perfunctory really.
It’s difficult because you aren’t allowed to engage in anything that could be construed as mildly
political, so if you start speaking out against what the government was doing, you could find yourself
in trouble. But as an elected fed rep it was my job to highlight issues where policing was suffering or it
wasn’t going to be good for the community. In many cases, as a police officer, you’re meant to give
facts and not express opinions.
It’s difficult because the police have got a sort of love/hate relationship with the media in that they’re
all over the press when they want something and they’re asking for assistance in putting information
out but sometimes they loathe when the press come to them for information about something. We
used to have a prepared ‘If asked policy’ where we wouldn’t tell journalists about something if they
didn’t ask us. If journalists found something out, we’d only give out information if they specifically
asked about it.
Journalists can write what they like, and do. I’m talking more national than local. Local press are
usually much better to deal with as their agenda is just getting news into print and printing facts.
They’re less sensationalist than perhaps the national press. They’re not digging into muckrake.
They’re more interested in what’s happened locally. They’re generally easier to deal with. The
nationals weren’t particularly interested in local issues. If a national story broke, it’d go to the press
officer or a senior officer.
If you speak to journalists the answer is no, as they say they can never get through to press officers
and the press officers are trying to control what information goes out, although they tend to write their
own stuff which is carefully laundered PR. Their main job is to put positive stuff out.
Plebgate was an interested situation because it happened and Mitchell was found to have said what
he said according to the report, and he’s paying for that now. The problem was that too many people
became involved in the whole thing and some quite clearly were told false information, so some went

54
to prison. I think the difficulty with something like Plebgate is that you have different newspapers that
have their own agenda. I don’t feel that newspapers are necessarily seeking the truth; they seem to
be finding their own angle to spin the story positively because their agenda is to support a particular
party. There you have people that are meant to be writing the news, but there’s a clear bias
depending on what newspaper you pick up. You can read the same story written by different people
and it almost seems like a separate incident. I think there are some national newspapers that pursue
a political agenda rather than just the news.
The hacking scandal has officially altered the way in which officers deal with the press as there are
now guidelines on what they have to do. If you speak to journalists who are used to doing it the old
way, they’re quite frustrated by the lack of information or liaison they get compared to what there was
before. I think that’s been driven by the Met Commissioner and I suppose they’re trying to ensure it
doesn’t happen again but it doesn’t always make for good relations.
It depends. I’ve had loads of different media training due to my various roles in the police. The media
training was in relation to how to write a press release if you were trying to get something in the news
locally. You’d be put through your paces with a mock television or radio interview just to see how
you’d cope if you ever got put into a position where you were required to answer questions. That’s
generally provided by current and ex journalists who get involved and come in to give people a hand.
A lot of people aren’t used to doing it but might be in a position where they will be. Trying to do it
where you’re clear and don’t make mistakes is a positive thing so people feel more comfortable when
they do have to do it.
I think the guidelines have been made clearer as they’ve brought out an official set of guidelines. You
must record that you had a conversation, what it was about and what you said in it so that you would
be clear and if anything happened you could come back and prove what you said. If I was phoned
and asked for some comments, I’d often ask them what they wanted answered and I’d write my
responses and email it to them. They could then come back to me if they wanted any clarification.
This way, I had a record of what I’d actually said, because in a conversation they might leave out
some of the stuff you said while leaving in other stuff. If you deal with people a lot of times, you
generally find that they are good, especially locally, because they knew, if they wrote a load of
rubbish, we potentially wouldn’t speak to them again. So they were keener to stick to the facts.

55
I think the police come in for a hell of a lot of criticism. The BBC went out with a headline about
children being tasered. When you come out with a headline that ‘x’ amount of children were tasered in
a year, the immediate thoughts of anyone, including me were ‘sh*t, what the f*ck!’ They were actually
talking about people who were under the age of eighteen, but there was no context to the story. It
didn’t say that. When my son was 18, he was bigger than me, he was 6ft 4. If you’ve got five or six of
what the BBC described as children but what I’d describe as yobs, or a potentially violent situation
with one officer, I can understand why some would use a taser.
Sometimes there are sensationalist stories with no context so then you look at twitter and everything
else and everyone is up in arms about these little kids. So the way things are written are sometimes
irresponsible and sensationalist.
But on the other hand, you get things that are written fairly and accurately. I think it’s absolutely
important that we have a free and independent press that are there to ask questions and highlight
issues where things go wrong. A good example was the Daily Telegraph unearthing the original
expenses scandal. That was some good investigative journalism, even though it might show things
that have gone wrong. It’s really important that we get to hear about it so if people are responsible in
what they write and don’t sensationalise and present facts that’s great.
I do understand that journalists are on short time frames and for them they’re reporting facts because
people who are under eighteen are classed as children legally, but if that article had been written
more responsibly, it wouldn’t have caused a load of fuss and controversy. If they’d have been a bit
more balanced and the same story was written saying ‘isn’t it awful we’ve got all these teenage yobs
running around that police have to use a taser on?’ rather than ‘police taser children’. It’s how you
write the story up. There is a huge suspicion among police officers and the right wing press that the
agenda is that, if you continually try and show how bad everything is and attack the police, the public
will get sick, the police won’t get funded properly and people will start saying we need to bring in
private companies to take over. There is a suspicion that the agenda of right wing journalists is to
support the government as they suspect that they want to privatise the police.
In my experience, when I was out doing the job, the press didn’t interfere. Over the years there have
been some fantastic examples of when the police have asked a trusted journalist to start out with
them from the beginning, provided that reporter stays discreet as otherwise it could prejudice the

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