There’s a minority of people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

They’re the first to complain and often among the last to help.

They crop up in the comments section of the Daily Mail and you’ve seen them in the local paper and from time-to-time on your Facebook page, too.

Social media has given them a platform and their indignation helps keep media companies’ share price in the black.  

Nobody minds challenge, but the self-righteous eye-rolled trolling isn’t that at all. It’s a drip-drip of corrosive bile that can sometimes inhibit some people from posting. It can only end in a world that is much poorer.  

So, it was so refreshing to see a newspaper group shun the clickbait of faux outrage for something far better and by doing so ironically reach a wider audience.

The story is this. Police officers were photographed eating breakfast getting a briefing in a branch of McDonalds. A debate broke out on Facebook with some criticising the officers for their public break. So, credit EssexLive for shunning easy outrage with this headline:

We don’t care that Essex’s cops stopped for coffee and neither should you.

Their enlightened stance was welcomed by a senior officer responsible for them.

What builds on it is this piece of human comms for an Inspector who on his own Twitter gave public support and gave an explanation of what they were doing:  

Not for the first time, sharing the sweets to give social media access to frontline people can bring dividends.

  • An every day occurance.
  • Which became a residents’ picture
  • Which became a Facebook post
  • Which became a news story on the web
  • Which became a tweet from a police officer shows the complexity of the media landscape in 2019.

But through it all a human voice still cuts through.

Original source – The Dan Slee Blog » LOCAL SOCIAL: Is it time for a Local localgovcamp?

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