Policing after September II: Federal-Local Collaboration and the Implications for Police-Community Relations

McArdle, Andrea

doi:10.1057/9781403983312_9

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“…ii While the media savvy efforts of Chief Bratton helped improve the reputation of the LAPD, the September 11 attacks dramatically shifted public attention away from police conduct toward terrorism and a conception of cops as "first responders" as well as away from crime and toward terrorism. (McArdle 2006). Furthermore, the newly instituted Department of Homeland Security developed a relationship with the LAPD and provided it with significant equipment and education.…”

Section: The Los Angeles Policementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in New York City there was a marked decrease in criticism of police after September 11 despite the fact that several police controversies, including racial profiling, the sexual assault of Abner Loima and shooting death of Amado Diallo, were still receiving widespread public attention immediately before the attacks (McArdle 2006). While I went looking for changes in police coverage after September 11, I discovered that the reporting on police had been undergoing qualitative changes years before the attacks took place.…”

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Object and Arbiter: The Police and the Los Angeles Times, 1996-2006

McGoldrick¹

2014

Studies in Media and Communication

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This paper examines the treatment of the police in the Los Angles Times between 1996-2006 through content analysis and supplemental interviews of police officers as well as reporters from print, radio and television media. After a brief review of the history of the fortunes of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Times during the years under study, the paper describes patterns of police coverage. The content analysis revealed an increase in international stories, a decrease in stories of local interest and a dearth of articles that applied critical analysis of, or skeptical regard to, police actions. The content analysis and interviews revealed that police departments and the news industry were undergoing opposing shifts: while there was a rise in the tendency of police departments to professionalize their communications (with departments' Public Information Officers increasing dramatically in stories over the years of study), there was also a steep decline in the resources news outlets were devoting to coverage of the police. These opposing tendencies, when correlated with the shifts in police reporting revealed in content analysis of the Times, can help explain why the paper provides its readers with less sophisticated and political police coverage. In effect, police are more often used as "witnesses" of fact rather than objects of analysis. This lack of vigilance over police actions hinders improvement in police/community relations in Los Angeles.Keywords: police, Los Angeles Times, reporting, professionalizing police communications IntroductionMost Americans get their information about police activities from media sources. This is true despite the reality that policing is the most intimate of state interventions into private life. Moreover, when surveying people as to their impressions of the police and their day-to-day work, people are much more influenced by the notion of policing presented to them in fictionalized portrays in television and film than by any real-life exposure. While procedurals may taint public understanding of the police, one of the primary sources of "reliable" information about police actions is local media. (Dowler 2003) Furthermore, the struggle of American newspapers to stay solvent since the late 1990s has had yet to be understood consequences to local governance. This is a time of changing priorities and new challenges to popular media and local police forces. This paper seeks to understand this changing landscape of media consumption and police media sophistication by tracking police coverage in the LA Times from 1996-2006.There are several reasons for this period of study. First, this ten-year time frame includes the rise of the Internet as the ascendant source of news and devastating competition for print press in particular. Second, initially I partook this study to understand the role of 9/11 in coverage of policing and while it was in some ways overshadowed by changes in reporting, there are still patterns that can be seen in press coverage in the ye...

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Section: The Los Angeles Policementioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%