GAC members meet with Tuck, Hood
A delegation of members from MPA’s Governmental Affairs Committee met Thursday with Mississippi Lt. Governor Amy Tuck and Attorney General Jim Hood to discuss the organization’s desire to improve newspaper access to fundamental information on crime reports at the local level.
MPA staff and GAC members participating in the meetings were chairman Lloyd Gray, editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal; MPA/MPS president Marcus Bowers, publisher of the Rankin County Record; Patsy Speights, editor and general manager of The Prentiss Headlight; Jim Prince, president of Prince Newspaper Holdings; Carolyn Wilson, MPA/MPS executive director; and Layne Bruce, marketing director.
The GAC has been seeking for a few years the adoption of standardized reporting of incidents and crime reports for local law enforcement agencies, emulating similar procedures in states such as Alabama and Iowa.
For the upcoming 2007 Legislative Session, GAC members are concentrating their efforts on improving accessibility to basic, pertinent information from police and sheriff investigations: including the “who, what, when and where” of a particular incident.
Tuck offered the assistance of her office in researching existing state statutes and examining those in use by other states, while Hood addressed the need to work closely with state associations for police and sheriff officials to maximize potential success for such measures.
GAC members will be following up in the coming weeks with the staffs for Hood and Tuck, as well as with the lobbyist for the state police chief’s association.