Rilling to mark Sunshine Week, boosting freedom of information

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3 responses to “Rilling to mark Sunshine Week, boosting freedom of information”

1. spanner

   March 17, 2014

   This is a great subject,this week the School dept,sent out a notice to the parents on stranger danger after everyone cleared the school dept office.

   It took a veteran reporter to check police reports so the truth could be written about the incident the school wasn’t forthcoming at all.

   In fact the city made it weekend news it started tuesday the usual normal flow of important information seems to take that long.

   I wonder if this is what the news editors are seeking timely news breaking information the public should have without jumping thru hoops.

   Those people who read the news and don’t have kids in school could of helped the police out,a plea all the time to get involved,information starts with the police correct?

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   1. Mark Chapman

      March 17, 2014

      @Spanner

      According to the veteran police reporter, whose facts reported Saturday were those laid out in the Norwalk Police press release that was sent out Saturday, the incident happened Tuesday but was not reported to the police by the family until late Thursday, indicating that school was out. The schools sent out notification Friday. Do you have other information that the schools knew about the incident prior to the police report? We do not cover the cops here, as we simply don’t have the staff, but we do like to get the facts straight even in the comment section.

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2. spanner

   March 17, 2014

   The school knew about it before the press release by the police by the looks of it maybe 24 hours,and if you read the release by the school its not as complete as the police report.

   It does show time sensitive informaton didn’t flow as fast as it should,a robo call could of been used as well.

   Some emails were not sent out from the school and read until after the office was closed.That does no good for most news rooms that need confirmation before a story is run they couldn’t get one.Same applies for the police dept release no story until its confirmed for some reporters.

   I have no indication the school told any media outlet at all this info came from parents to the media from what I gather,that in itself is a poor way to handle it.But conveniant for not having to give confirmations.I see only motive not a genuine concern for the safety of the kids and long before the police dept spoke.

   Would the police dept confirm a school dept release? Doesn’t sound like they did this time. yawn

   I’d love to see the inter office memos between schools to see how that was done if at all.

   There seems to have been no urgent need to get the news out timely,we know how confirmations work and whats it like to wait for a call back or you sit at the police station all morning as if you were waiting for a new born to arrive.

   My point was and still stands if this was taken seriously why did it take so long for the Media to get a confirmation to run the story?The whole point was for those without kids to watch out or may have seen this guy to aid in apprehension.

   I may have elongated the time frame to stress the way it was done.By the time the media got it out it was still almost two days later in some cases , some news rooms had to revise the facts based on what the school released professional or not.

   Todays breaking news is not setting type or rolling the presses,its done by confirmations on the most part by keyboard or phone .Depnding on what the criteria is,this incident I think was serious enough to get the word out in a timely manner.

   Do I have any other info? not on this incident but the past is filled with performances by both Norwalks school and police dept that suggests questionable tactics.Its hard to trust the here and now when something this serious takes so long to surfice.

   Someone did mention this sounded like another case from the area as recent as a week ago ,hate to think this same thing happened elsewhere and got by all of us maybe by the same guy fitting some of the same details.That would take a better reporter than I mentioned to solve this incident.Hate to think some kid has to be hurt before the word crime can be used.

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