‘Cop[ying] it Sweet’: Police Media Units and the Making of News

Abstract

Over the past two decades police media units have played an ever-increasing role in managing the dissemination of information between the police and media organisations. Using the example of the New South Wales Police Media Unit in Australia (hereafter NSW PMU) this article assesses the journalistic deployment of PMU information and develops a broader sociopolitical argument explaining the growth of PMUs more generally. We analyse qualitative research data, in the form of interviews with journalists and NSW PMU staff (n = 29), and quantitative data from an analysis of two Sydney-based daily newspapers. We suggest that the growth of PMUs can be explained with reference to new programs of governing crime that developed throughout the last quarter of the 20th century as well as significant changes to the global media landscape.