Commentary; Posted: 2/19/03

With gag order on cops, Minneapolis mayor goes too far

Don Heinzman

Most community officials would prefer less emphasis on the negative and more on the positive actions in city halls, school systems and county systems. Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak is trying to centralize and control communications in Minneapolis City Hall to put a good spin on bad news.

His big concern is that the public fails to understand that despite recent alleged abuse cases by several Minneapolis police members, itís really a good department with lots of good officers doing good things every day.

Mayor Rybak fails to give the public credit for having much common sense. Given all of the facts, both the good and the bad on an issue, the public can sort out the evidence and usually comes to a good common-sense conclusion.

Given an attempt to spoon-feed the public with news mush over a critical issue, the public becomes suspicious and loses trust in the very institution the mayor is trying to protect.

In a big police department, just as in a big school system, there are going to be a few serious instances where a member is going to step out of line. The public, which after all funds the police department, expects its public police department to tell all, including what is being done to correct the situation. That doesnít take a lot of communications strategizing. It takes a clear public policy enabling all the best knowledgeable sources of information on the front lines to tell all the facts.

What the mayor fails to realize is that the public can understand that an off-duty policeman can do something wrong, even point a loaded pistol at someone. It can understand that in a large force there may be racism resulting in the abuse of a Native American. The key issue here is that the public does not conclude that because of these instances, the police department is bad and the chief needs to be replaced.

Rybak, of all people, a former newspaper reporter and a publisher, should know better than to try and gag news sources. He should realize the media, whose job it is to report news to its public, will go the extra mile to get the story. If its regular paths to information are blocked, it will search for sources until it finds some, but it will get the story.

This is not to say that the media is faultless. Sometimes the media will interview officers on the front line, go with a story in this competitive-crazy news age and blow it up out of proportion.

The media needs to put the bad in proportion to the good, but the public expects it to get the story. When the dust settles, however, the public realizes if the media went overboard.

When something serious happens in the police or fire department, the best rule is tell all immediately, rather than let the story drag out and fester in the publicís mind.

Part of the mayorís strategy is to develop a campaign to tell all the good things the police department is doing. Since 9/11, however, the public has more respect than ever for the police and fire departments. Telling one more Good Samaritan story about a police officer wonít change the publicís mind.

The mayor will soon find that trying to gag the police department so a good message about a bad situation can be crafted will not work. There are too many leaks in a large department in which there are too many agendas.

Many mayors would prefer that more good stories be written about the good things its departments and employees do. Some are tempted to blame the media for reporting what some employees do that is wrong and even illegal.

If nothing is wrong, the media wonít report it. Most savvy administrators know their chance for the best treatment of their departments is having a good relationship with the media. A relationship thatís based on openness and trust will come into play when a sensitive news story needs to be told.

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