Okay, okay, it’s starting to seem like I’m picking on the Winnipeg Police Service. But I can’t resist pointing out that they are reaping what they sowed in their current PR battle about the case of the stolen camera card. A local man is accusing the police of confiscating his camera’s memory card after he refused to stop taking photos of a police takedown of a couple of ne’er-do-wells.

After the police service’s recent display of selective memory (what many have called dishonesty) on the witness stand at the Taman Inquiry, is it really a surprise to see the service is having a hard time getting people to believe its side of the story? (Police say they didn’t take the memory card.) This is how credibility affects performance of organizations. This crisis of confidence is far from over for the police and that is a crying shame because most of the cops I’ve met have been straight-up ‘good guys’ trying to do what’s right for our community.

Sound public relations is rooted in credibility and trust. If they’re missing, it doesn’t matter what you say… no one is going to believe you.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 11:58 am and is filed under Winnipeg Police, Credibility, Crisis communications, Issues Management, Winnipeg, blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.