Obstruction of Journalism

WHY THIS MATTERS

Technology, social media and protests have combined to increase strain in reporter-police relations.

In this summer marked by high-profile police shootings, which extended a turbulent two-year run of questionable deaths and mounting racial tension, many local TV reporters are suddenly feeling stonewalled.

When Brian Collister, an investigative reporter with KXAN, Media General's NBC affiliate in Austin, Texas, started asking about Sandra Bland's hanging death in a Texas jail, he knew he might trip over the thin blue line.

State police had been firmly refuting allegations that the Bland case-which started when a trooper stopped the 28-yearold black woman for a traffic violation three days earlier-was rooted in the widespread practice of racial profiling. Unconvinced, Collister wanted to see the facts for himself and launched a data-heavy probe into the Texas Department of Public Safety's claim. The agency didn't budge.

The Texas DPS stalled for four months before giving Collister the data he requested. He ultimately used it as the basis for a report that exposed state troopers for juking the stats - recording the disproportionate number of Hispanic drivers they stopped as white.

We were met with an extreme lack of cooperation, says Collister. They clearly take internal assessments on how cooperative or not cooperative they are going to be based on how your story is going to make them look.

Frustrating experiences like Collister's are increasingly becoming the norm when it comes to dealings between local TV stations and law enforcement agencies. The strain on relations has worsened after the summer rash of shootings, which saw police covered as both aggressors and victims.

In this environment, old-school routines like calling desk sergeants for story tips (and covering PD pancake breakfasts in return) have in many markets morphed into complex pas-de-deux. Simple inquiries become epic quests for information in which police departments' public information officers have the upper hand in determining what gets released and when.

You can't call anymore and ask how many people died, says WMAQ Chicago's Carol Marin, whose recent work includes an extensive investigation into a Chicago officer fatally shooting 17-year old Laquan McDonald in 2014. They'll say, FOIA it.'

For decades, a natural symbiosis has existed between police and media. While relations were not always fluid or smooth, both sides reaped benefits. Reporters air highly-rated stories about crimes in the community and police often get help, and often credit, in solving crimes by publicizing details. With more hours of news airing across local markets, the ritual of a police sketch of a suspect or a news conference appealing to unknown perpetrators to turn themselves in arguably play a bigger role than ever in newsrooms across the country.

But, as Collister told B&C, the small fissures in that foundation have become full-blown cracks. Police, in his experience, have an inherent distrust of media since what they do wrong' is magnified in media coverage, he said via email. They're likely to be less cooperative/transparent with an investigative reporter digging into a negative' story in contrast with a police beat reporter who primarily covers what the department sends out in press releases or what officers say at a crime scene.

The rift is playing out in a number of ways. In Dallas, where Tegna-owned ABC affiliate WFAA's relationship with the police chief is fraught, local media were barred from the department's press conferences in the days after a gunman killed five officers in July. News director Carolyn Mungo says the station and chief David Brown have long been at odds over how transparent the department should be.

New York City has witnessed a steady stream of police news of late, from the choking death of misdemeanor suspect Eric Garner to a police funeral at which scores of officers turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio. Last month, New York Police Department commissioner Bill Bratton announced his resignation, ending two decades of decision-making by Bratton and predecessor Ray Kelly that often was engineered for local and national TV cameras. Bratton, who is married to trial lawyer and CBS analyst Rikki Klieman, along the way forged a crucial alliance with John Miller, a former ABC News and WNBC reporter turned NYPD official who plans to remain with the department.

In other cities, police are bypassing media altogether by dispersing information themselves through social media. Some departments post their own video.

Local broadcasters say their relationships with cops took the biggest hit over the last year or so due to a range of factors, starting with video surfacing of police shootings of African-Americans-and protests that ensued. The Black Lives Matter movement took off after the widely televised events in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. And well before the drama created by this summer's shootings, technology has fueled intense scrutiny of police officers, with every citizen now an amateur videographer in situations marked by violence, tension and sometimes death.

Industry watchers say coverage of those incidents, as well as police handling of African-American protests, has put the hundreds of thousands of cops around the country on the defensive, shutting out journalists as a result.

Many officers view the circum-stanes as a a game of gotcha,' says Seattle assistant police chief Perry Tarrant, also president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. Even with seemingly objective video evidence, he adds, Everyone who is watching it is watching it with their own baggage, their own set of experiences, with jaundiced eyes,

This much is clear: Media outlets, especially stations, which ca

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