Contrary to popular opinion, journalists are not superheroes. They do not have super strength,
can’t read minds or stop time. Hell, most of the time they can’t even get
through gridlock traffic to cover the accident causing said traffic.
Superman may have chosen journalism as his alter ego’s profession, but journalists are
more like Batman, sans the car, latex and money.
Like the Dark Knight, journalists must rely on gadgets to do their job. And there is no
gadget like the newsroom police scanner. The police scanner is
journalist’s utility belt.
Reports of
car chases, robberies and snakes in hotel rooms make for the perfect background
noise for newsrooms.
Every
journalist has had to put in his or her dues by listening to the scanner. Whether
it’s a 240, 507 or even a 604, odds are there is a journalist listening in on
it. Dedicated crime journalists have been known to keep scanners by the sides at all times. They pride themselves in showing up at the same time as the police.
When news breaks via the scanner, the newsroom breaks into a panic, with
editors making calls to public information officers, journalists grabbing notebooks and copy editors bumping a
30-inch piece on child poverty that some poor schmuck spent three weeks reporting on
to make room for a quick-and-dirty body count piece. In journalism, if it
bleeds, it leads. Though journalists foam at the mouth for action on the scanner, about a quarter of the time, reports of a meth lab
filled with ammunition engulfed in flames actually just turn out to be a boring, run-of-the-mill
bedroom candle fire.
While all
the hype is around Facebook, Twitter and this fad called the Internet, the
police scanner is the unsung hero of newspapers. Sure, if journalists want to
find out what Ashton Kutcher and John Mayer are doing, they can
use Twitter. But when real news goes down, odds are it can be overheard on the
scanner. Of course, the next logical thing journalists do after hearing about a
big story on the scanner is twitter about it.
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Not here, not anymore. Police can no longer be picked up by scanner, as they’ve done digital.
can you elaborate? police scanners in newsroom, obsolete?
Only a week or so ago the police scanner picked up a report of a major crash between a road train and a car.
Within 20 minutes the local TV cameraman and myself were on the scene. The article I wrote and the accompanying photo earned me my first story in the state’s largest daily newspaper (I currently work for a weekly regional affiliated paper).
I always perk up when I hear the police scanner go off now, even if they are just talking about lunch.
The old scanners don’t work anymore. You have to use a newer model that can pick up 800Mhz talk groups.