It’s clear we need more transparency

LINCOLNSHIRE Police has introduced a new scheme to tackle burglary - see page 7.

The force wants us all to tackle burglary together and from the public viewpoint that means: looking out for neighbours; reporting crime or anything suspicious and making sure we don’t invite criminals into our homes by leaving doors and windows unlocked.

For its part the force is going to update us about how it is tackling the crime that people in the county are most concerned about.

So one week into the Beating Burglary Together campaign, the force has issued an update on its activities. Most action seems to have been on the east coast, but over here in Lincoln Guy Cobb, 52, of Fairfield Street, was charged on Wednesday with burglary of a home on Monks Road which occurred in May.

This is great but it shouldn’t need to be a campaign - it should be the norm. The squeeze on my profession is partly responsible for many organisations being able to present what should be bleeding obvious as remarkable.

I never thought I’d say...’back in my day’, but here I am fondly remembering how the local press was so much better not only at holding our supposed caretakers to account, but at simply reporting local news.

Pretty much every journo over a certain age will have done police calls when we popped down to the local nick and the duty inspector would tell us what had been happening in the area. We could work out for ourselves if there was a pattern to certain crimes and ask what action was being taken.

We went to council and other public meetings or court hearings and gathered news for ourselves rather than reporting what we’re fed.

There was a trust there - a proper relationship with the common aim of serving the community Resources - or the lack of - throughout local media severely restrict the opportunities to challenge what we’re told and cover all the local news we’d like to.

And I’ll hold my hands up and say the Independent is in the same boat as everyone else resource-wise, but we do actively seek to have relationships in our community.

It’s a word that is bandied about a great deal ‘community’, but many of those controlling the flow of information wouldn’t know what it really meant if it slapped them in the face with a dictionary.

The lack of transparency results in a lack of trustthere’s always that feeling we’re not being told the whole story and that feeling is often bang on. I seem to have picked on Lincolnshire Police, but the force is only working within its own constraints and the burglary campaign just sparked a train of thoughts.

In this digital age when so much information is available do I feel we’re less informed than ever? Do we really get the media we deserve? I’d like to think not and that the Independent in its own little way plays its part in redressing the balance as a free publication serving the Lincoln area. Space permitting of course.

Dexter

Lincoln Office Landmark House 1 Riseholme Road Lincoln, Lincolnshire LN1 3SN Tel: 01522 533588 www.lincolnindependent.co.uk

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Rachel

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