Toronto police daily newscast will provide ‘unfiltered’ information
The Toronto police will broadcast a three-minute daily newscast on YouTube starting Thursday.

TheStar.com
Nov. 1, 2017
Wendy Gillis

The Toronto Police Service is dabbling in the news industry, launching a short weekday newscast as part of what it calls an ongoing effort to communicate with the public and officers alike.

Starting Thursday, the force will broadcast a three-minute newscast to “talk about what we do here at the Toronto police directly and unfiltered,” according to a promotional video the service released this week. The show will “air” on YouTube and its social media networks at 10 a.m. each weekday.

Meaghan Gray, spokesperson for the Toronto police, said Wednesday that the show is a natural progression from some of the existing communication initiatives, including their website and social media accounts.

Among its objectives is to “dispel urban myth that crime is everywhere in the city every day,” the video says. That information will be drawn from the Toronto Police operations centre, which tweets out the various calls and occurrences officers respond to throughout the day.

The show will be a chance to provide information about what may have occurred crime-wise in the city overnight or the previous day, “but it’s also an opportunity for us to highlight various projects or initiatives or individuals,” Gray said.

The show will not cost any extra money, Gray said, because it’s using resources already available within the corporate communications section of Toronto police.

That includes media-relations officers who are already working to provide journalists with information about breaking crime news in the city. Those officers will be the hosts, at least in the early days of the show, she said.