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Show Cooperation Badly Needed A group which prefers a low profile but tends to find itself in the thick of things is the Park City Police Department. De-partment. Not meaning to harp at a group which is already al-ready down, we find it necessary to comment on their attitude concerning something we both must have to functioninformation. func-tioninformation. It has been painfully obvious that the Police have become increasingly less cooperative with the Press in this town within the last few weeks. Both newspapers have had difficulty in contacting an officer ANY officer for a comment or even a factual account of an event. Whether this be because of a wish to suppress information in-formation or whether it be due to a fear among all of our police officers to say anything to anyone about anything including auto-pedestrian accidents it is a situation which needs immediate correction and cooperation from both sides. A newspaper is a vehicle which transmits information, as accurately as possible, to a reading public. At it's best it is a public forum and a soundingboard from which people can articulate informed opinions concerning their town. But if the press is cut off either through dodging tactics, delayed information or silence, how can the readers of any paper be accessed of the news? As inadequately as it is handled at times, we must have access to it. It is a newspaper's news-paper's job to get it and it is the publics' RIGHT TO KNOW. A case in point has been the two people hit on Park Avenue within the last eleven days. We had extreme difficulty dif-ficulty in simply getting at the bare facts of who, what, when, where, how and why important the skeleton of any story. In the most recent case, bare information could have been given to the papers when the investigating officers came in off duty. They must write a report at the end of each shift. But no, we were told to wait to even get the names of those involved until 14 hours later. Three people called our offices the previous night, one of them an anxious mother who had heard of the accident and was concerned that it might be her son. After four phone calls around town, she phoned us who had no information to eive her. We have been aware of a long feud broiling in City Hall over just who has responsibility of Park Avenue the State Highway Department or Park City. Perhaps it was not desirable for everyone to know immediately that an accident ac-cident had happened on that street and then to have another happen in so short a time. This is not favorable news, particularly in light of the fact that someone was killed two years ago close to the same spot. Publicity, however can act in the general public's safety and in every driver's awareness while motoring on this street. So why avoid publicizing the facts as they happen? The possible fear of release of this information - translates to secrecy if you're on the outside looking in. It makes us suspect to 'the motivations of the police, and in its extreme suspect to whom they really work for the-, city or some interested party. We are not saying this is the case. Only that silence can have many sounds. Granted there is fear on any interviewees part of being misquoted, misrepresented andor mistreated in statements he says to a reporter. But there is recourse through the paper for anyone who has been misrepresented. Retraction and correction are printed often in every daily newspaper across the country. But we are not a tape recorder. If we make a mistake, we stand corrected. Only with a spirit of cooperation from both our sides can we accurately arrive ar-rive at the news, which again is the public's right to know, and for whom we both work. |