By Shereen Siewert, Editor and Publisher | Wausau Pilot & Review

Last weekend, the Wausau Police Department took to Facebook to dispel online rumors about an active shooter situation after witnesses were alarmed by a significant police presence at Fern Island.

Department officials did not issue a press release during or after the event. The same is true in the case of a missing teen, 17-year-old Morgan Torrens, who left her home on July 26th. There again, the department posted a plea for public information solely on Facebook. This is a scenario that plays out frequently, and not just by the Wausau Police Department but also by other local police agencies and by local government officials.

This is a backwards step for Wausau Police in terms of media relations. If the point of an appeal to the public is to reach the widest possible audience, this trend is counter-intuitive and counter-productive.

Email is the primary communications channel for most local news organizations. Not sending out press releases through this method could not only lead to information being missed by busy journalists, but by the public entirely.

Law enforcement agencies are quick to say that the reason they use social media is that it allows for a greater degree of connection with the communities they serve.

That’s understandable, especially given the time constraints departments are under. But Facebook has one major drawback: It’s reach is absolutely pitiful. At best, only 5% of your audience will ever see your information. And often, when they do see it, it’s hours or even days later. Even for the journalists like those working in our newsroom who spend every day scouring social media, those posts don’t always show up in our feed. In fact, most of the time they don’t, and that prevents us from informing the public about crucial events in their communities in a timely manner – events they have every right to hear about.

Another argument we hear from law enforcement is that a press release sent through email has to go up the chain of command for approval, which takes time. But that raises another question – why aren’t social media posts vetted the same way as a press release?

I understand that the speed of a social media post makes it more appealing. I argue that speed means nothing if no one is seeing it.

In an age where so many people are calling for more transparency in policing, this, combined with the 2017 decision to encrypt police scanner traffic, does the exact opposite. We call on all local police agencies to rethink their communications strategy and work with the media to spread the word – especially since we can no longer monitor their actions through scanners, which were once newsroom mainstays.