Today, media practitioners and news editors met with the Commissioner of Police at the Raccoon Street Police Station. They gathered to try and end a three week impasse between the Police Press Office and the media. As we've been reporting, the media launched a boycott of all police events three weeks ago. The gripe at that time was that the new police - media protocol which was proposed on January 11th, 2017 was not working, and that it needed to be revised urgently. That protocol should have been reviewed 6 weeks after implementation, but that meeting never happened. Well, it wasn't so urgent for the Commissioner who finally committed to a meeting today, 11 weeks later.
This morning's meeting took just over two hours where the media aired its grievances about the various breakdowns in communication since January. The commissioner responded with renewed commitments to re-energize the police press office and to permit Commanders to speak with the media - but only on a case by case basis.
In the end, the media called off the boycott and agreed to try this new approach for a four week period. Both sides meet again on April 28th.
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