Journalists should never use copganda terms like “officer involved shooting” yes, but also journalism malpractice goes so much further than that. Cops are not experts on public health/safety or even crime control. They lie constantly. The info they provide is often ideological.

Journalists should build sources in communities, not with cops. Tell stories from community perspective, not the perspective of lying cops. Journalisrs should exercise extreme caution whenever printing any info shared with them by cops.

Journalists should not trust the word of anyone in power, any agent of the government, including and esp cops. Full stop.

And chiefs of news orgs - protect your reporters & editors, keep prosecutors & cops OUT of your newsrooms. There are far too many news orgs run by ppl who defer to the cops or just straight up collaborate w/ them. Fuck them if cops are mad, stand up to them, push back

We have chosen to give cops the power to kill and harm people w/ near-zero consequence as a matter of policy. No greater scrutiny should be applied to these clowns. Accurate words in a story make them sad/mad, give me a fucking break. You’re not doing this right if cops like you.

Don’t. Trust. The. Cops. Delete their press release. Do journalism instead. & when you get an angry email/call from them, celebrate, you did good. When they blacklist you & no longer comment on your stories, keep asking them, and also high five, you’re really doing journalism now

So many false assumptions about policing & the politics around policing would shift if journalists would stop developing cop sources and instead develop a network w/ organizers, advocates, defenders, impacted people from over policed/underserved communities & report from that POV