In the last twenty years, I have worked with many reporters, editors and photographers to bring the most accurate and updated information to my community as is possible.
I’ve witnessed countless incidents that sent community residents into a tailspin over a range of situations from fires to domestic disputes, to robberies to missing people and even homicides and reported back on each and every one of them. Doing that job would be very easy if we just wrote the first or the most sensational thing we heard about without focusing on fact checking or the verification of sources.
Over this past weekend, KFC on Cross Bay Blvd. was robbed by a suspect the police think may also have robbed Key Food back on April 6. Both of these robberies took place after the establishments were closed, there was no one on the premises and both involved the stores ATMs, safes, broken glass, etc.
Unfortunately, a Facebook posting by the Howard Beach Civilian Observation Patrol (HBCOP) reported that intruders had broken into KFC while there were employees present and that the intruders had tied those employees up –according to the posting they were placed in real physical danger.
Just for a second, imagine someone’s friend or family member who works at KFC just happening to go on Facebook and see a posting like that or get a phone call from someone else who saw it. I am sure we don’t have to waste time by discussing how effective social media outlets are in transmitting community news. This particular incident went,“mini viral”, shall we say.
It would have been bad enough if a reckless post like this came from an individual, but coming from an organization who bills itself as having been founded to help ensure safety and security in the community, it takes on a whole different light. This type of misinformation is dangerous on a number of levels.
Fortunately A KFC employee debunked the posting–her sentiments were pretty concisely summed up in one sentence: “Jesus Christ where the hell do you get your info from?”
Other comments on the misspeak came from Community Board 10 Chair Betty Braton who wrote: “Thank you for removing the not accurate information you put up earlier.”
A reply from HBCOP went like this: Your welcome Betty Braton. Sometimes people give wrong information. I have gotten so many calls from neighbors today regarding this matter. It’s better to get the information from the source (106 precinct). Hopefully they can give us that information directly in the future.
Well the one thing HBCOP said that’s accurate is sometimes people give the wrong information. That is why journalists spend hundreds of hours verifying facts and sources before putting anything down on paper for the world to see. It just seems to us here at The Forum that anyone who is going to ride around the neighborhood in a somewhat official looking vehicle with their own logo and represent themselves as entitled to “investigate” critical situations in the absence of the police should not be the ones posting sensational hearsay and creating havoc in our community. There’s a reason that journalists spend hundreds of hours verifying facts and sources before putting anything down on paper for the world to see.
This is evidenced by the string of comments from people who after seeing the posting began a discussion about how the neighborhood is swiftly deteriorating.
We’d like to offer a few words to HBCOP on this matter—To begin with, to suggest that the 106 Pct. report directly to you is almost as preposterous as the posting.
The 106th precinct has gone to extensive lengths to facilitate delivering accurate information on crime and other important quality of life issues. And they are doing a stellar job of it.
The responsibility of providing a community with the protection and the security measures that our police force offers and the responsibilities a local newspaper assumes in delivering accurate information to the community are both very critical, serious responsibilities.
Perhaps it would be best to leave those responsibilities in the hands of those best suited to do them. Let’s have the police take care of our streets and journalists gather our news.
