The police simply accept calls for service and then assess them for viability of police service or other government services, before sending officers or other to calls within their responsibility. Broadcasting a bicycle theft, a reckless driver, a shooting, etc. may be news to the media, but it is an investigation to law enforcement. The police may or may not inform the media about what goes on regarding incidents occurring within the past 24 hours, but that is not deciding what is "news" and what is not. It has to do with retention of viable of criminal intelligence for the prosecution of crimes and not releasing too much information. I've sat through these briefings and the news reports a small number of incidents that occur, contingent upon the market. In NYC, few people care about the number of cars stolen in a day, but they do care in Moline, Illinois.
For departments that do not have MDCs, an information channel should be encrypted to prevent people from learning personal information about others such as DOB/SSN/OLN/residential addresses/etc. Detective and tactical channels should be encrypted as well. If not, then information goes over cell phones and even then, the information is edited to prevent disclosure by subpoena. Otherwise, I don't care about encryption because it doesn't cover up much - broadcast every injury accident, shoplifter in custody, and drunk disturbing call in the clear, it is all rather boring after a time.
I once worked for a Federal agency that didn't yet have encryption and we got along quite well by never using radios for anything sensitive. Traffic analysis would show some things, but not a statistically significant minority of information involved.
Some people assume that LE is a puzzle palace of evil conspiracies. It is far from that, but they will believe as they want and no amount of transparency will convince them of it. They are always convinced that they are right.
