By Zachary Reid
Richmond Times Dispatch
RICHMOND, Va. — The fragmented world of information dissemination is taking a literal turn toward law and order.
Police departments across the country and beyond are learning how to put their own spin on the news they create, and for three days this week, dozens of those departments are in downtown Richmond learning the tricks of the trade.
“You can’t afford not to (be online),” Rick Clark, the police chief in Galax, said Monday during a session of the sixth annual Social Media, the Internet and Law Enforcement conference at the Omni Hotel.
This year’s event is being hosted by the Richmond Police Department. Monday’s sessions were opened to the media, but most of the rest of the conference will take place out of view of the public.
The presence of media on Monday was made clear during a strategy session featuring Clark, Richmond Police Chief Bryan T. Norwood and Roanoke Police Chief Chris Perkins. The attendees were reminded of the media and advised to act accordingly, particularly in regard to the questions they asked the panel of chiefs.
Most of the session focused on the daily grind of creating and maintaining presence on popular websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and what that effort meant to the departments. Several vendors were also in the room, including one company that offers a service that allows police departments to monitor Twitter feeds for criminal activity.
The use of social media is a way “we try to tell our own story,” Norwood said. “It’s a real positive way to interact.”
Sessions today and Wednesday that are closed to the media and the public include “Multi-Agency Knowledge Sharing Through Social Media,” “The Dark Side of Facebook: Online Radicalization and Security Implications for Law Enforcement” and “The Social Tightrope Between Building Community Participation and Being Big Brother.”
Norwood stressed the ability of the Richmond Police Department to disseminate nontraditional information — officer profiles and news of the department’s K-9 unit are big hits, he said — but he and the other chiefs also said social media could be a powerful investigative tool.
“I was somewhat hesitant,” Clark said. "(Then we) started getting crime tips, and I realized what an important tool it is.”
Clark was the most adamant of the group in stressing the importance of tackling bad news the same way departments handle good news.
“If you’re going to bask in the good stuff, you’ve got to be prepared to talk about the bad,” he said.
Later in the session, he said: “Rumor control is very important. Don’t hide from it. The truth is the truth.”
Who gets to tell the truth was the central theme of the day.
Clark said he was lucky to work in a town without a daily newspaper or television station. He said he thought his department’s website was his town’s news source, at least on police information. Galax, which is in the far southwestern part of the state, has a population of 6,983. The Police Department’s Facebook page has 2,620 “likes.”
Norwood said his department is often on the defensive because it’s in the position of reacting to news. Changing that, he said, will allow his officers to better handle their work.
Posting news online, he said, would allow the department “to right a story that’s out there, to correct a lean.”
All of the chiefs talked about the police division in Milwaukee, which created a department-controlled “news” channel. On its website, The Source claims “to give you the genuine, unfiltered information from us.”
Gene Lepley, a former television news anchor who’s now the spokesman for Richmond police, said a similar approach could be used here in the near future.
Answering a question addressed to Norwood about how social media has changed the way the department interacts with traditional media, Lepley said: “We want to be the go-to source for information.”
Norwood said the Richmond Police Department has created its own production studio so it can create videos.
“The challenge is keeping folks informed in the way they’re accustomed to,” he said.
“The more information you put out, it makes people feel very engaged.”
The three-day conference is being put on by LAwS Communications, a Massachusetts-based company. This is its sixth Social Media, the Internet and Law Enforcement (SMILE) conference. The gatherings have been held across the country.
Copyright 2012 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.