grant
Member
Summary of Day 1
Brisbane Courier-Mail
Police censorship feared
Lachlan Heywood
28jul04
QUEENSLAND'S police media unit could not be trusted to be impartial if the media were denied access to police radio communications, a Crime and Misconduct Commission was told yesterday.
The Courier-Mail editor David ***an told the CMC news coverage of important police issues would suffer if the release of information, previously available to news outlets by monitoring police radio scanners, was at the discretion of the police media unit.
"Our experience, generally, with government and police media units is that (their) objective is to deny a problem and limit political embarrassment," he said.
"My fear is, that left in the hands of the police media unit, we will only find out about the crimes that have been solved or the crimes which need our assistance by identifying a suspect and not the vast bulk of crimes in the middle which are of equal interest to our readers."
The CMC is investigating the adoption by the Queensland Police Service of encrypted digital radio technology, which blocks the news media from listening to police communications.
Mr ***an said the police scanner was a "basic tool" used by journalists since at least the 1960s, and the QPS had "sprung a trap" by switching to a new system without consultation. "Shutting down access to the radio network appears to me to be designed to make it more difficult, to limit the diet of crime news to what is first sanitised by the police service and its media unit," he said.
Earlier, Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said he did not accept criticisms of the police media unit in written submissions to the CMC.
"The media unit has a very important role," he said. "I think it has the confidence of the police service and its members, and it certainly has my confidence."
Mr Atkinson said the media had an important role in helping to solve serious crime but questioned how far the right to information in the name of public interest extended.
"Could it be extrapolated out to suggest that if the media can have unfettered access to police communications, are they also not entitled to what happens in the emergency waiting areas of public hospitals or in a public school? I am not suggesting that the media would advocate that. My point is simply where does it stop?" he said.
ABC news and current affairs editor in Queensland, Fiona Crawford, also expressed concern about the police media unit controlling information, saying that "all too frequently" they were given information so long after an event that they were not able to use it.
"In one case, the information was sent four days afterwards."
CMC chairman Brendan Butler, who yesterday visited the police communications centre and the Channel 9 newsroom as part of his investigation, said the inquiry was examining "competing interests" of high importance to society.
"It raises issues of press freedom, privacy, security and public. Each of these competing interests is valid in its own right," he said.
http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,10266135%5E3102,00.html
See the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Comission website for a full transcript of each days proceedings (in pdf format), plus suggested communication models and lastly submissions by interested/affected parties.
http://www.cmc.qld.gov.au/PRC_INQUIRY.html
Brisbane Courier-Mail
Police censorship feared
Lachlan Heywood
28jul04
QUEENSLAND'S police media unit could not be trusted to be impartial if the media were denied access to police radio communications, a Crime and Misconduct Commission was told yesterday.
The Courier-Mail editor David ***an told the CMC news coverage of important police issues would suffer if the release of information, previously available to news outlets by monitoring police radio scanners, was at the discretion of the police media unit.
"Our experience, generally, with government and police media units is that (their) objective is to deny a problem and limit political embarrassment," he said.
"My fear is, that left in the hands of the police media unit, we will only find out about the crimes that have been solved or the crimes which need our assistance by identifying a suspect and not the vast bulk of crimes in the middle which are of equal interest to our readers."
The CMC is investigating the adoption by the Queensland Police Service of encrypted digital radio technology, which blocks the news media from listening to police communications.
Mr ***an said the police scanner was a "basic tool" used by journalists since at least the 1960s, and the QPS had "sprung a trap" by switching to a new system without consultation. "Shutting down access to the radio network appears to me to be designed to make it more difficult, to limit the diet of crime news to what is first sanitised by the police service and its media unit," he said.
Earlier, Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said he did not accept criticisms of the police media unit in written submissions to the CMC.
"The media unit has a very important role," he said. "I think it has the confidence of the police service and its members, and it certainly has my confidence."
Mr Atkinson said the media had an important role in helping to solve serious crime but questioned how far the right to information in the name of public interest extended.
"Could it be extrapolated out to suggest that if the media can have unfettered access to police communications, are they also not entitled to what happens in the emergency waiting areas of public hospitals or in a public school? I am not suggesting that the media would advocate that. My point is simply where does it stop?" he said.
ABC news and current affairs editor in Queensland, Fiona Crawford, also expressed concern about the police media unit controlling information, saying that "all too frequently" they were given information so long after an event that they were not able to use it.
"In one case, the information was sent four days afterwards."
CMC chairman Brendan Butler, who yesterday visited the police communications centre and the Channel 9 newsroom as part of his investigation, said the inquiry was examining "competing interests" of high importance to society.
"It raises issues of press freedom, privacy, security and public. Each of these competing interests is valid in its own right," he said.
http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,10266135%5E3102,00.html
See the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Comission website for a full transcript of each days proceedings (in pdf format), plus suggested communication models and lastly submissions by interested/affected parties.
http://www.cmc.qld.gov.au/PRC_INQUIRY.html
