“Houston, we have a problem.”
Why would a retired police officer and editorial director for a law enforcement publishing group start out a blog entry with those words? Because truer words were never spoken, but I’m applying them to a challenge we (law enforcement) face each day that may even be bigger than an oxygen leak on a rocket in space: the widespread assumption that anyone on social media who proclaims themselves to be an expert actually is.
Why am I tearing off on this rant this morning? Truly, nothing unusual has happened. I’ve gotten online, scrolled through the news I subscribe to and then scrolled through the three primary social feeds I use: Facebook, X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. Thankfully, the news I subscribe to is politically impartial and doesn’t generally use pundits to generate sensationalistic content. Instead, they simply avoid the sensational and embrace (gasp) responsible journalistic reporting of events. Then we get to the social feeds… after which I made the mistake of opening my email (something I can’t avoid but often cringe at anymore).
Of particular note to me was the number of people who have written articles, or are offering “expert opinion” on law enforcement events in our nation, or even around the world. It never ceases to amaze me that people will claim to be expert in a topic, or offer expert opinion about an event, for which they have zero experience. Let me give you the perfect example: I received an email from a PR firm offering to connect me with the CEO of a real estate development company so I could interview him about his “expert opinion” on the ICE operations in Minneapolis. Exactly what expertise does a real estate developer have in federal law enforcement? I thought perhaps he was a retired officer so I checked his profile on LinkedIn. Nope. He earned a degree in art history and then went into real estate and worked his way up. I congratulate him on his efforts but in no way see his opinion on federal law enforcement as “expert.” More likely is his desire to somehow increase his reputation in real estate development and if he could get somehow published on a law enforcement website it might boost his profits in inner-city developments?
Then there’s the guy who spent three years in the Coast Guard (an underappreciated service in my opinion) and then went on to make his career (30+ years) in the commercial fishing industry… but he wants to offer an article about how seizing two oil tankers is unlawful. Again, I fail to see how a commercial fisherman is an authority on federal law enforcement and military operations in international waters. I give him credit for the knowledge he gleaned in the Coast Guard – but that was in the early 1990s and I’m not sure laws, procedures and protocols have remained stagnant for all that time. Further, I believe the mission of the Coast Guard is substantially different than the mission of seizing an oil tanker under recent circumstance.
So, how do we, in law enforcement in general, avoid hiring or being significantly impacted by those who claim to be experts but really aren’t? We do what we’ve always done best: we see through the smoke and mirrors. From the very beginning of law enforcement in our nation there’s been the need to see through the lies and misrepresentations of scammers, fraudsters and outright criminals. In today’s world where technology allows people to so easily misrepresent themselves, it behooves us to be thorough in our due diligence. The good news is that there are so many ways to glean public information about someone online today that it can be fairly easy. The bad news is that there are so many ways to manipulate online public information today that we have to increase the time and attention to detail we spend sifting through what we find. It’s almost like intelligence analysis as we read between the lines, look for date conflicts, recognize the information that’s (intentionally?) missing and more.
Here at OFFICER Media Group we will continue to present the best news and information we can find that we believe will impact how law enforcement professionals perform their duties. We will continue to filter out the unnecessary or lacking in value. We approach providing information with the primary goal of serving all of those who serve wearing a badge.
