Media issues in police education and training1

Abstract

Abstract Using an in‐class survey conducted with two Administrative Officers Course classes of the Southern Police Institute, the author determined these mid‐career police officials generally were in favor of increasing the amount of formal education and training devoted to police media relations issues. The respondents were regular media consumers, reading local newspapers and watching local television news with high frequencies, most doing so daily. They viewed all news media as being between somewhat accurate and of mixed quality, and felt TV and film crime fiction were somewhat accurate to very inaccurate. Unlike some earlier studies of police attitudes toward the mass media, these officers did not see the media as overtly hostile toward the police, but judged them neither pro‐police nor anti‐police in their outlook and coverage. Their views are used by the author in support of advocating additional media training of police and the inclusion of media relations in collegiate criminal justice education curricula.