A Struggle Ensued...., Copaganda Is Built Into The Fabric Of Police-Media Relations

kansascitydefender  |   It is easy to see how police are the dominant authority in these murders. Another news story, released by KSHB Kansas City two days after Malcolm Johnson’s murder, works to legitimate the narrative by exclusively using police and FBI perspectives. In the story, Public Information Officer Sgt. Jacob Becchina says, “We train tirelessly from day one to give officers every tool both physically, mentally and tactically to work through those situations so that they have the best chance to make the best decisions that they can,” suggesting again that this outcome was the best possible and truly could not have gone any other way.

The article also quotes a retired FBI agent and former cop, completely uninvolved in the case, who adds legitimacy through admitted ignorance: “Unless there are circumstances that we don’t know about, I think this will be found to be a justifiable use of force.” The article follows this with information about Johnson’s backstory that does not pertain to the actual incident in the convenience store.

Becchina is one of KCPD’s three Public Information Officers, a euphemism for marketing and PR cops who push information out to journalists and are functionally in-house propaganda machines. PIOs write press releases and often, as the primary spokespeople for all incidents, prevent the media from talking to the cops involved. In a 2016 study conducted by the Society of Professional Journalists, 196 survey respondents at a variety of news outlets shared that over half of them regularly experienced PIOs blocking their interview attempts with police.

A third of these respondents said that it was the department’s policy to prohibit interviews with anyone other than the PIO, Chief, or other executive cops. Every reporter I asked about PIOs had a similar story of being blocked from access to crucial information. “The police would rarely speak to me; I had to go through the city manager and rely on insufficient press releases,” a reporter for a small city’s only newspaper told me. Others spoke of problems with purposeful misinformation or information withholding, discrimination based on news outlet, and exhausting runarounds.

As paid members of the police force who report directly to the Chief, Public Information Officers create the narratives that most breaking news stories reproduce. In a vlog called “What I’ve Learned Being a Public Information Police Officer” (posted 11/23/19), a YouTuber called officer401 talks about the process of getting information to the public:

“Something major happens…you go back to your office, you type up this long press release, and you send it out to the public and all the news agencies. Within minutes you have reporters from all over the country calling you. I’ve had people from the New York Times call me, I’ve had people from People Magazine call me. And they all want further information about your story….there’s something strangely satisfying that when you put out that press release, hours later you’re watching the news and every station that’s talking about your story is literally reading your press release word for word.”

Because reports are sealed due to “pending investigations,” crime scenes are closed, and involved cops are not available for comment or questions, the rapidfire media cycle forces reporters to rely on PIO press releases for all initial reporting. Having a dedicated PR staff means police committing these acts of violence have someone at the ready to handle any incidents with necessary time, energy, and media connections, something completely foreign to the average person, not to mention someone who has been incapacitated or killed by police.

A lack of transparency and public understanding makes it so that the average person knows nothing of the way PIOs impact news stories. Further adding to the confusion, television reporters often head to the scene of the crime to do their reporting, which–again–is frequently taken verbatim from the PIO’s press release. Visually, the presence of a reporter at the scene suggests they have a kind of eyewitness authority–that they themselves have gathered information from the crime scene, possibly talking to cops and witnesses. This seeming objectivity gives the police narrative even more power.