The response to the LAPD’s new blog has been rather mixed. On the one hand, I think it’s a great start with some mostly technological issues to fix. On the other, one LA Daily News columnist, Mariel Garza, thinks the blog “just bogs down net.”
Like I told the Daily News a couple of weeks ago, I think the LAPD is serious about using this blog to really engage the community. I became even more entrenched in that position when I saw the LAPD’s response to Garza’s column:
We designed the blog to do a number of things, respond to criticism without having our responses edited, gauge the pulse of the public, let people know what’s happening in the Department, both good and bad, and yes even plug the positive contributions of its men and women. The audacity of this this LAPD “flack” to actually want people to know that yes, cops are people too and they do good things. They don’t, as the writer would have you believe, spend the majority of their time going from one fast food restaurant to another. Transparency goes both ways you know…
Will the blog, as you say “reverse years of secrecy and conflict with the community?” Our hope is that in time the dialogue will help to heal old wounds. But come on, you’ve got to give us more than two weeks!
Whatever you think about the LAPD’s presence in the blogosphere thus far, they are using their blog to engage their detractors head-on. Yes they have some growing to do as bloggers, but like they said, give them more than two freakin’ weeks!
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