New data from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker shows relations between law enforcement and the media have become strained. Over twenty journalists have been detained or arrested in the U.S. over the past six months. An Alabama program designed to provide leadership training to the state’s public safety officials is attempting to remedy this issue of distrust. The Alabama Public Safety Leadership Academy program is gearing up for its visit to the University of Alabama’s Digital Media Center tomorrow.
Chandra Clark is an associate professor in journalism and creative media at The University of Alabama. Over the past 13 years she's cultivated a relationship with the Alabama Public Safety Leadership Academy. It goes by APSLA for short.
"The Alabama Public Safety Leadership Academy is basically a year-long training program that meets each month with different leaders who applied to enhance their skills, not only in public information but also just to be better leaders in their communities that they represent from all over the state of Alabama," Clark said.
APSLA is focused on training public safety officials like firefighters, police officers, EMA workers and more. The goal is that officials walk away with diverse training on how to be better leaders. Their Media Relations course is set to take place tomorrow. Clark says the course is vital now more than ever.
"Now in the days of social media and media disasters or disasters where media are covering them, it's always hard to have the right answers really quick. And so my collaboration came in with them with trying to help them be better communicators, better responders to the media and also just to kind of be calm when the media calls," she said.
APSLA began in 2014. Allan Rice is the current commissioner and former executive director of the Alabama Fire College. He and special programs director Reid Vaughan founded the program after finding no leadership academy experiences in the field of public safety.
"That was a huge goal of the program: was getting all different elements of public safety familiar with one another and working together so they can serve the people of their communities and the people of the state more effectively," Rice said.
Since the start of the program media relations have been involved. Chandra Clark's church was destroyed during the tornado super outbreak in 2011. As she worked on communications efforts for the area following the disaster, she met the APSLA founders. Rice says the event provided an opportunity for collaboration.
"Her church was destroyed, the church that she was a member of, and so her church congregation actually wound up meeting in the fire college building for a couple of years. While they rebuilt and got their feet back on the ground and got a new facility," he said. "So, we met her that way, and as we were putting the Public Safety Leadership Academy together, we're like: 'well, well, wow, that's just, I mean, there it is, right there.' Like she is the main person who could provide this media training, and of course, when we asked her about it, she was all over it."
APSLA's Media Relations day is one of nine specialized sessions students complete over the course of the program. The day includes mock press conferences, interviews, and interactions between safety officials and University of Alabama journalism students.
"Even though it was a mock situation, I have experienced standing at a podium in front of a room of reporters and getting questions from each different individual," said Josh Hamm, a Battalion Chief at Troy Fire Department who served as last year's APSLA Class Chaplain.
The hands-on experience from APSLA's Media Relations day is something Hamm says he has carried into his career since graduating.
" Just like anything else, now I have that practice under my belt, and I would feel much more comfortable doing it in a in a real-life scenario," he said.
APSLA's exact model of training is unique, but similar leadership initiatives can be found around the country. Lou Jogmen is the program director for the Illinois Public Safety Leadership Institute. Their program spans 3 weeklong meetings over the course of several years. Yet the goal of the institute and APSLA is the same.
"It's great that Alabama is doing that and bringing folks together from different departments, different regions, and different disciplines, but all around the same goal of professional development and educating them on how to maybe reduce liability and make a better workplace and community," Jogmen said.
The Illinois Public Safety Leadership Institute also conducts a media relations course as part of their programming. Theirs features instruction from Chris Cavelli, the public information officer for Lake County Major Crime Task Force.
"He did speak to and address working with the media because it's certainly important that we have a good partnership," Jogmen said. "We're all wanting the same thing, and that's great public safety. And so we can certainly support each other in that."
Brian Bonner is the program manager for APSLA. He graduated from the academy in 2021. During this year's Media Relations day, he says instructors are going to continue to focus on hands-on experiences.
"This is such a unique opportunity for the participants to actually be in a television studio, seeing how things work behind the scenes, hearing from media specialists and experts. It's building that relationship way ahead of time so when that emergency happens and it's 2 o'clock in the morning, and there's a camera in their face, they're ready and they're on point with what their message needs to be," he said.
Both APSLA and University of Alabama students get to learn from participating in these mock scenarios. Bonner says the benefits of the program are twofold. The public safety officials practice working with the media while the Digital Media Center's future journalists practice being them.
"The benefits are not only that it gives our students in APSLA, who are subject matter experts in their field- police, fire, whatever that may be- but also it's giving that exposure when it's not a critical incident to the students that are also participating," he said. It kind of allows the students to understand what we're going through, and then we can also hear back from them," Bonner said.
Chandra Clark hopes this year's course continues to strengthen trust between the media and public safety officials. She says that both fields have something to learn from each other.
"I think that's really what we all take away from the day is that there is learning to be had on both sides, and if we don't try to understand each other and what each other's roles are, it's going to continue to be a trust problem and a credibility problem whenever there's an incident that happens," she said.
