On October 15th of 2009, the Calgary Herald published an article in the City & Region section regarding the public opinion of the Calgary Police Service titled ‘Calgarians pleased with police service’, with the by-line ‘Gang violence remains a major concern’.
Authored by Gwendolyn Richards of the Herald, the article summarized a recently released survey conducted by the Calgary Police Commission Citizen Survey which reported that an overwhelming majority of Calgary citizens are satisfied with the service.
However, gang violence in Calgary is shown to be the area in which most Calgarians are concerned about, which CPC chairman Denis Painchaud primarily attributes to the New Year shootings which left 3 dead. Richards also quoted Painchaud as stating that
“there is still a significant gang problem out there...There’s still work to be done".
Following the mentioned concern with gang violence, the article proceeded to present more statistics and interview clips which suggested that although the public perception of safety is increasing, more officers will be needed as the city continues to grow in population.
I believe that Richards did a relatively good job of presenting the report in an objective, fact-based manner. In combination with the overwhelming amount of statistics, Richards included compelling interview clips with the mentioned chairman of the Calgary Police Commission, Alderman Diane Colley-Urquhart, and Deputy Chief Al Redford, which gave the article a good sense of validity and believability.
However, due to the fact the article was primarily in regards to the public perception of police presence, I believe it would have been beneficial if Richards had interviewed regular citizens to gain their perspective. Such an addition would give further depth to the statistics, and would allow a reader to relate more to the subject matter.
I also found the presentation of the statistics order to be interesting, and it may be perceived that a slight bias was included. Near the middle of the article, Richards presented four statistics in regards to the public perception of safety and officer totals. The last statistic she presented was in response to the question of whether they would like the Calgary Police Service to recruit more officers, which one-third of the interviewed responded to affirmatively.
Out of the four previously mentioned statistics, the latter-stated was the highest in percentile but for some reason was cited at the end of the paragraph. Also, it was the only statistic in the article to be presented as a fraction (one-third) rather than a percentile, which I found to be peculiar. I cannot explicitly suggest that Richards is biased towards the police service (which many reporters are), but there is a slightly subjective stance taken.
Ultimately, Richards presented the credible statistics from the CPC in a compelling manner. Asides from the two mentioned potential improvements, the article summated the report well, and concluded that although the Calgary Police Service is lacking in officer totals and that gang violence is worrisome, it is doing its job well.
References
Richards, G. (2009, October 15). Calgarians pleased with police service. Calgary Herald, p. B3.
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