Inside the strange new world of police PR efforts

By The Big Story

In today’s Big Story podcast, police services often have their own versions of events, which are usually revealed in press releases or in conversation with reporters. But as abuses of power are uncovered and public sentiment turns against them, some police forces are going much further than that in an attempt to burnish their image.

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a writer and reporter based in Winnipeg and the inaugural Justice Fund writer-in-residence at The Walrus. Julia-Simone is on today’s episode of The Big Story to discuss the different media strategies being rolled out by Canadian police departments in an effort to sway public opinion in their favour.

“There is a mounting lack of confidence in policing and in justice systems more broadly,” she said, “I think this is why we’re starting to see these unconventional approaches to public relations.”

Should cops write newsletters on Substack with their side of the story? Should they hire crisis communication firms using tax dollars? And even as they do it, does it accomplish anything?

You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify.

You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.

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