September 1999 Volume 80 Number 9 "serving the protectors"
Trusting THE NEWSMAN
By Brett Williams

Nothing could make Channel 7 police reporter, Peter Caldicott, reveal the identities of his secret police contacts inside SAPOL. True to journalistic ethics, he’d rather go to jail than betray a source.

And after 10 years with Channel 7’s news service, many of those contacts have become, and will remain, he says, his life-long friends. But as contacts, none was easy to establish.

“It’s hard,” he says, “ because the police department is a very closed shop. Police, on the whole, only socialize and discuss issues with other police officers. You have to get to know police on a personal level for them to be able to trust you.

“I consider it a privilege that many police officers have confided in me, knowing full well that there could be consequences by doing so.”

But how do police sources provide Caldicott with information? Do they name names?

Caldicott, 34, explains their method as “pointing me in the right direction”. “(They’ve) not necessarily told me point-blank: ‘So-and-so has done the murder’,” he says, “it’s guidance more than anything else.

“Many times I don’t broadcast a lot of what I’m told, simply because it could get certain police officers in a lot of trouble.”

And creating trouble for police is nowhere on Caldicott’s agenda. He’s convinced they have the community’s toughest job; one he would “have a very hard time doing myself”.

He’s staggered that, in the face of day-to-day dealings with society’s worst, police officers can keep smiling and remain approachable.

They deserve much better pay, he believes, and far greater recognition for their efforts.

“They’re some of the best, warmest and most caring people that I’ve ever come across,” he says, “people who are committed to the job; who have a goal to make society safer.”

But despite his admiration of police, Caldicott was never, as a child, inclined to join their ranks. Rather, as an 18-year-old, he left Australia for the US where, on an academic scholarship, he attended universities in Tennessee and West Virginia.

By 1988, after six years’ study, he’d earned a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Arts in broadcast journalism.

Before returning to Australia, he worked for local television station, WPBY-TV, in Tennessee, where he produced and presented a weekly 30-minute news bulletin.

Today, it’s the excitement and unpredictability of police reporting that keeps Caldicott interested in his work. He thinks of it as “a life education”. “I spend a lot of time bouncing between crime scenes and courts,” he says.

“I get to see the full gamut, from the offence through to the court system at the end.”

But for Caldicott, interacting with police wasn’t always easy. He remembers times of strained police-media relations, and once felt that police were encouraged to keep the media at arm’s length.

“Hopefully, over the years, I’ve helped to change that,” he says. “Police should talk to the media, and the media should talk to police. It’s a two-way street. That’s the only way we can get the right story across.

“As soon as you block the media out, it makes them try twice as hard to jump over someone’s back fence - and that’s when you can literally get in the firing line.”

Caldicott believes that, today, police-media relations are generally good, “but could be even better”.

And to help improve those relations, he welcomes discussion with police officers concerned that they or their actions have been reported inaccurately or unfairly.

“It happens,” he says, “but please, give me a call. Tell me you have a problem with my story, and please explain what the problem is so that it can be avoided in the future.”

Meanwhile, Caldicott has invaluable advice for police officers fielding media questions on camera. He says police-speak, such as “proceeded in a westerly direction” and “decamped from the scene”, simply confuses the public.

“As soon as they can’t understand you,” he warns, “they’ll switch off.” He urges police to use simple, every-day language to best convey their messages.

Moreover, to enhance the police image, Caldicott believes SAPOL should capitalize on positive police stories by alerting the media to them.

“It’s the department’s own fault that it’s not taking advantage of that,” he says. “Like any other major corporation that has a media department, that office (Media Liaison) should be the busiest office in town, getting out positive stories which often don’t see the light of day.”

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