Telling The City's Story

Last week I watched a young man with pen and notebook among the small crowd at a community meeting held by Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs. As the mayor spent half an hour on a rapid-fire listing of events and   statistics, his pen never touched paper. Many of what the mayor called "commercials" were lifted right from the city web site and I wasn't about to try to recount them all either.

The incumbent in any political race has a big advantage in gaining media attention, but unless the opportunity is properly used, it is wasted.

For example, at one point, the mayor said Part 1 crime was down by 100, a figure that Public Safety Director Martin Hellwig corrected to 116.

"It's wonderful to know that Part One crime decreased tremendously," the mayor said. Citing 10 new firefighters and 10 new police officers, she added, "This time last year there was quite a bit of gunfire and several homicides," noting only three this year.

I wrote a note to myself, "What does it mean?"

To understand the remarks, one would have to know that all 566 New Jersey municipalities must report crimes to the state for an annual Uniform Crime Report that is published by the State Police. It is divided into Violent Crimes and Non-Violent Crimes and also includes demographic data. Part 1 crimes are the violent ones, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In isolation, the number 116 did not tell much of a story.

The latest UCR on record was for 2010, so I e-mailed Director Hellwig for further information. The 116 represented the difference in total Part 1 crimes from January through July for 2012 over the same time period for 2011. The complete reports are not issued until much later in the following year, so the 2011 report is not even out yet officially.

So according to internal numbers, Plainfield had 1,204 violent crimes from January through July of this year, down from 1,320 for the same time frame in 2011. That translates to an 8.7 percent reduction in violent crime, which a reporter could round off to 9 percent.

But then one might ask, how many in each category and how does that compare overall with other municipalities. Hellwig noted in his e-mail that homicides numbered five in 2008, two in 2009, eight in 2010 and 10 in 2011, with only three so far this year. I did not ask for a full statistical breakdown of other violent crimes.

(In the old days of news gathering, these reports always generated stories comparing crime in towns covered by the newspaper. With the new ability to sort statistics, readers can now also get charts like this one from the Courier News. )

The trouble with statistics is that they can always be read different ways. A 9 percent reduction in violent crime may look good until one realizes that the city's crime rate in general is much higher than that of surrounding communities. So there is always the "compared to what?" factor. A reporter who brought back an isolated number to the newsroom would undoubtedly get an editor's admonishment to put some context on it or not try to use it in a story.

The point of my somewhat rambling commentary here is that to say "Part 1 crimes are down by 100" is not really intelligible to the public and only invites the media to look further into it or just ignore the whole thing.

The city has suffered over the past several years from not having a media professional who can help tell the city's story in a concise and articulate way.

A few years ago, the mayor and her then-public information officer confronted the Courier News over perceived slights. The Courier actually gave the mayor an unprecedented amount of column inches on the editorial page to rant about it. The mayor promised (or threatened) to submit three good-news stories per week for publication. Well, that didn't happen. The PIO got dismissed and there wasn't been another one until this year's brief transit of a new PIO from Trenton.

The mayor is holding another community meeting at 6 p.m. on Aug. 30 at Washington Community School. The public and press are invited. It's another opportunity to talk about Plainfield. Will communication take place?

--Bernice