{"id":147734,"date":"2015-05-01T16:21:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T16:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/target\/propaganda-police-foi-docs-show-uk-cops-spend-36mn-a-year-on-pr\/"},"modified":"2015-05-01T16:27:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-01T16:27:12","slug":"propaganda-police-foi-docs-show-uk-cops-spend-36mn-a-year-on-pr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/propaganda-police-foi-docs-show-uk-cops-spend-36mn-a-year-on-pr\/","title":{"rendered":"British police spend \u00a336 million per year on propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"mct_ai_excerpt\">Police forces spend tens of millions on public relations each year, with the Met alone employing over 100 \u2018communications\u2019 staff and an operating budget of over \u00a310 million, documents released under Freedom of Information (FoI) show.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation, carried out by the Press Gazette, has revealed there are 775 PR staff working across 38 national police forces. Over 200 kids with mental health problems locked up by police Besides the 38 forces that responded, a further four ignored the request, two claimed to be exempt from answering and one did not address the question.<\/p>\n<p>The overall figures involved are calculated to be in the region of \u00a336 million per year.<\/p>\n<p>The Met\u2019s head of media Ed Steams told Press Gazette the London force\u2019s substantial budget was used for many activities beyond routine PR, such as recruiting and internal communications.<\/p>\n<p>Some critics claim the rising number of PR staff and press officers throws up a barrier between public and police, and stops journalists exploring the inner workings of law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.toolsforfreedom.com\/Operation-Mockingbird-CIA-Media-Manipulation-p\/2044.htm\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-147738\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/operation-mocking-bird.gif\" alt=\"operation-mocking-bird\" width=\"209\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie told Press Gazette: \u201c My sense is that the police hire more and more people in their comms area in order to stop journalists from finding out what is going on. Assault rifle used by UK counter-terror police \u2018doesn\u2019t shoot straight\u2019 \u201c The senior officers hate what appears in papers as they are in the unusual position of having no control. They also hate the public knowing what is going on because it may reveal the police haven\u2019t done or aren\u2019t doing their job properly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201c Further, they dislike the argument that they have to answer through the journalists to their ultimate paymasters \u2014 the public. How are the public supposed to find out what is happening crime wise in their local area without the media? \u201d<\/p>\n<p>The FoI covered the period from 2009\/10 and 2014\/15, and showed that budgets had actually grown despite simultaneous fiscal austerity.<\/p>\n<p>On seeing the figures, senior political figures expressed disappointment that the PR budget had swollen.<\/p>\n<p>Green Party London Assembly Member Jenny Jones told Press Gazette: \u201c I&#8217;m sympathetic to the idea that the Met needs a press budget to report good news stories, as well as try to rebut the bad, but at a time of savage cuts it\u2019s disappointing to see growth. \u201d<\/p>\n<p>This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Police forces spend tens of millions on public relations each year, with the Met alone employing over 100 \u2018communications\u2019 staff and an operating budget of over \u00a310 million, documents released under Freedom of Information (FoI) show. The investigation, carried out by the Press Gazette, has revealed there are 775 PR staff working across 38 national [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":147735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,1615],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-147734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}