Well I've seen the media start to stir the pot when they become out of the loop. Asking what the city administration is trying to hide by going 100% dark. In Bucks county PA (or some other eastern PA county) I read on these forums that the media held the police or city admin with calls for "what are you hiding?" The decision to go from a county 100% TKD system was reversed. I have no idea why Philadelphia encrypts their fire response channels but the police still speak in the clear unless they need to go secure. I'm positive more sensitive info is broadcast over PD than FD.
As a long-time member of these forums AND a first responder in Bucks County, I can tell you with 100% confidence that the media played zero role in the County Commissioners decision to keep the routine channels in the clear. And also, for what it's worth, any police dispatcher can flick that switch on their console at any time. There was a 3 week period right after the May 30th riots in Philly that Bucks police were encrypted.
I've also had the opportunity to visit the 6ABC newsroom on more than 1 occasion. They have 4 scanners set to Philly channels. That's it. They otherwise have a large TV screen with a Twitter feed on it. On multiple occasions I have seen word for word copy and paste from a public safety Tweet end up on the media's website. Trust me when I tell you, the Philadelphia media market is trash and has no influence on the police.
And as for the PFD tac channels being encrypted, that was a decision made long ago my a far gone fire commissioner that didn't want the world to hear his guys cursing or saying they found a dead body over the air. And you're right, when that guy shot 6 cops, the vast majority of traffic was on J Band, a clear channel, and not encrypted channels. And thanks to those transmissions being shared world-wide, they have made changes to their policy about radio channels. Next time you won't hear as much as you did that time.
But back to Jersey City. So it looks like you will be able to hear "I got heavy fire on the 3rd floor!", but unless you were sitting outside the fire station and followed them in, you have no idea where it is. Isn't that great? Guess I'll be buffing JC less and Newark more *shrugs*
I just have to Echo Dan and say. I live in Bucks County also and monitor every day, I am retired newspaper man who worked in Trenton and we had a Bucks County Edition at The Trentonian.
I'll be honest with you Bucks County doesn't have any media anymore. Philadelphia media will do a flyover or have a truck come out for major stories in Bucks County as long as it's a slow news day. Sometimes the young reporters don't even know where they are and will call it Bucks Township. The Bucks County Courier Times no longer exists per se. They fired 600 employees and It is paginated in Texas and printed in Bucks County, I would barely call it pertinent news and really doesn't have many readers. Its relevance is less than it ever was.
My area in Levittown has a website that covers local news but it is what the police release whenever they release it. The County Commissioners kept their word and after full-time encryption for 3 weeks during the height of the riots they returned to dispatch being in the clear but we still have encryption for anything else.
Our routine dispatch zones go to encryption whenever they want even though they have encrypted ops channels to switch to. This happened after Bucks County dispatch became available for free to anyone.
I guess the point is the reason we have something in the clear is because the politicians resisted the police Chiefs who would like to see total encryption. It had nothing to do with any media, we really don't have any media that acts as an advocate for disclosure.
As far as Jersey goes, I worked in Trenton for 30 years, when they went to their nxdn system they were in the clear, there wasn't a problem with media types, first responders, serious hobbyist monitoring but it was made clear that if it became readily available they were going to throw the switch, it was and they did.
