Last week, we published A Comedian Walks Into a Police Station, a deeper look at the Greensboro Police Department’s social media channels and their manager, whose work recently led to the department removing and apologizing for an offensive post.
Michael Hewlett, The Assembly‘s courts and law reporter, caught up with the piece’s author, Joe Killian, to talk about how and why he wrote the story, reaction to the piece, and how police departments use social media.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What drew you to this story?
I started my career in daily newspapers as a cop reporter. Greensboro’s police department, like departments all over the country, has been at the center of political debates and controversies for most of the 26 years I’ve lived here. During my decade at Greensboro’s daily newspaper, the News & Record, cops and court stories were part of every beat I covered, whether I was writing about Greensboro city, Guilford County, or state politics.
But I’ve also got cops in my family. I’m aware of what the job is like, who does it and why, how they talk among themselves versus how they talk about the job with the public. When I began to see the Greensboro department’s social media leaning into humor and lighter posts, I recognized it as part of a national trend among police departments to try to rehab their images in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, and a national conversation about policing. They felt they had seriously lost hearts and minds. But some of the posts…an increasing number, as time went on, seemed mean-spirited, punching down, and expressing some views about the people they’re policing that I know are divisive within the department itself.
I met the social media manager, a former radio personality and comedy writer for radio shows, when I interviewed former GPD Chief John Thompson almost two years ago now. Offhand, I asked him about the tone of the accounts. He told me all the followers and engagement it was getting proved it was a great success. So I kept that in the back of my head as something that may merit a story later, depending on how it developed.
Things spiraling out of control and them having to finally remove and apologize for a post…that just made finally getting into this story unavoidable. How and why did it get to the point where he felt emboldened to make that post? How did the department become an environment where any of this behavior was okay? Getting into deeper questions like this around stories other publications might give one surface-level story—that’s what The Assembly is built to do.
What has been the Greensboro Police Department’s reaction to the piece?
No public reaction to the substance of the piece. Which isn’t a shocker. There’s this internal professional standards review that’s apparently still ongoing, and a new chief is coming in. I’d be surprised if there was a public reaction to it. Privately, I’ve had people in the department and in city government tell me they thought the piece was fair, needed to be written, and was a long time coming.
Has there been any change in GPD’s social media posts since the story came out?
I’d describe the social media posts as a lot more considered and less out there recently, but I don’t kid myself that’s a direct result of our story. This controversy in general put a lot of eyes on the issue, and the new police chief, whose hiring has been controversial, starts this week. They do not need extra, avoidable headaches right now.
What was your biggest takeaway about how law enforcement agencies use social media?
I think law enforcement sees social media in much the same way other institutions, corporations, or even media companies see it: as something that can help them connect with an audience, get messages out, and which can create community if handled properly.
But as the experts in the story discuss, you have to understand what your goals are and ask the right questions about what you’re doing and why. You can do really divisive, destructive things that get a lot of followers, likes, and popularity. You can build community around bad values. We see that all the time across all kinds of media. One source in the story mentions Joe Rogan. Enormously popular—but he doesn’t have the same goals as a government agency. Is the popularity itself the point? Does it justify alienating some people, doing and saying things that aren’t representative of the true values of the department? Do you risk accidentally confirming the worst assumptions of your strongest critics?
I came of age as a reporter at the real dawn of social media. We were trained, as reporters, to try to use social media to connect with the audience, for sourcing, to interact with people, but to be mindful of our values, to be respectful, and understand we are always representing our publication. That’s good guidance for anyone, something that communications professionals still consider a best practice—and something that was not reflected in many of the official GPD posts I examined reporting this story.
Have other law enforcement agencies gotten into trouble over social media posts?
“Trouble” is relative, I guess.
The GPD social media manager took at least one joke from word-for-word without attribution, from the Louisville, Kentucky, Police Department’s official account. He only acknowledged the plagiarism when called on it publicly and then waved it away. Ironically, the Louisville department had to publicly apologize for some of that same post, among others, during a snowstorm over the winter after a lot of complaints.
It’s obvious from a number of GPD posts (including one in which our city’s social media manager calls that Louisville department’s account “The GOAT”) that he admires the tone there.
The Fall River, Massachusetts, police department famously got themselves into trouble and ended up apologizing over a post made about the verdict in the murder of George Floyd.
It’s more common for individual officers to end up in real trouble. Back in 2019, there was a large-scale scandal in Philadelphia in which 72 officers were put on administrative leave, some facing more serious consequences, for various social media posts. Just last month, a Houston police officer was fired for making racist comments in an online video.
The fact that actual departmental accounts are more rarely the center of these controversies is reflective of their generally being more caution and professionalism when it comes to those official accounts.
