« Friday Festival Of Blog Bits | Main | The 'Mysterious Disappearance' Of A Privacy Bill »

L.A. Police Blog Aims To Bypass Media

The Los Angeles Police Department (supposedly) unveiled a blog today. Its motivation for doing so is one shared by most, if not all, public officials: The department doesn't like the way it gets covered in the media.

"The purpose of this blog is to provide real-time, unfiltered information to the public," the LAPD said in an online announcement of the blog.

Police Chief William Bratton was a bit more blunt in a Los Angeles Times story. "I see the blog ... as an opportunity to communicate with the public and educate them about what we are doing at the LAPD," the paper quoted him as saying. "But I also see it as an opportunity for me to respond to those issues where I feel the department is being misrepresented."

By the way, I said "supposedly" because when I clicked on the link provided in the department's announcement, I was redirected to an "under construction and coming soon" page.

Lesson No. 1 for the LAPD: Don't tell bloggers you've created a blog and link to it until it's actually there. That is annoying -- and also counterproductive if you're goal is to avoid bad press.

UPDATE: The blog link is working now, and curiously, the blog has entries dating back to Wednesday. So I guess the LAPD has been blogging for two days without anybody knowing it.

Posted by Danny | 12:29 PM

Comments

Post a Comment