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Police digital radio hearing begins

   BRISBANE, July 27 AAP - Blocking media access to the police digital radio communications network would lead to the sanitisation of information available to the public, a Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) inquiry has been told.

   CMC chairman Brendan Butler was told that forcing media outlets to obtain information on crimes and other police activities through the Police Media Unit would lead to officers being able to filter news to put police in a good light.

   The CMC inquiry was set up by Premier Peter Beattie following concerns expressed by media outlets over a trial in the Brisbane metropolitan area of a digital communications network that cannot be monitored by radio scanners.

   Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said the media never had any right to monitor police communications, even when it could be done with scanners.

   Citing the security of police operations and the safety of police officers as one of the major reasons for introducing the new technology, Mr Atkinson said it was never the intention to damage the good relations between police and the media.

   The editor of The Courier-Mail newspaper in Brisbane, David Fagan, told the inquiry that listening to police radios had been a basic tool in newsrooms at least since the late 1940s.

   He said he did not deny that police should have the best weapons available to fight crime, including an enhanced radio system.

   "But we do not believe that putting the reporting of crime into the hands of media officers dedicated to one side of the story rather than journalists dedicated to telling many sides of the story represents any sort of step forward," he said.

   The ABC's Queensland editor of news and current affairs, Fiona Crawford, said TV networks relied on access to the police radio network to help them get appropriate pictures for news bulletins.

  "Without pictures we don't have a story," she said.