St. Anthony Police audio

I saw this brought up on another thread hear and decided to start a new post on it, please keep this discussion about the audio/scanner recording issue- not the event and the aftermath - thanks
Most hear have probably heard the audio first broadcast by KARE 11. While the original story missed a few point - like the officer was not talking to dispatch but to other officers, the audio changed the story quite a bit and gave a whole lot better picture as too why the officer was operating at a high level of concern.
I believe police need to properly use encrypted traffic for officers safety / operationally security, but day to day radio traffic is best in the clear. Often city / car to car traffic is not recorded by the agencies. If this incident had happened in a city that encrypts there city channels, there would not have been any way to independently confirm the officers story.

The star trib also had audio but it was more complete.

The Star Trib audio is much better than the KARE11 audio, since they put the whole clip of audio up and kept the different channels separate- car to car clip was 1, then dispatch clip was separate. KARE 11 took the two clips and cut bits and pieces and edited them into a news story. ABC News also has a good clip of audio, the put together clips from multiple channels, but noted they edited them together.

Unless one has the entire, unedited audio it is difficult to make any conclusions. The media does a great job of editing audio and video to manipulate a story in the direction it wants you to see. As a general rule, I think one can believe about 25% of any story seen on the "news" programs. The challenge is deciding what 25% isn't bogus.

Part of the reason to own and listen to a scanner is to get the news in a form that is as unfiltered as possible.

A part of the lop sided reporting from the media has to fall back on the agencies that don't talk to the media. I always think back to a reporter talking to a public information class is was in and stating- I am going to put a story on the air, you can talk to me and get your side out or I will only have the story from those who will talk at the scene and that is often not the message you want put out. The big department have caught onto this with there dedicated PIO's - a mix between LE professionals and media reporters.

You are certainly correct in some cases. I think that agencies need to do a better job of interfacing with the media.

I have tangentially been a part of a contentious news story and witnessed first hand the lengths that reporters go to in order to paint the picture that they want seen. In that same situation I have also seen the need for aggressively touting one's own story to counter the BS.