Politics & Government
City to Launch a Second Review of Media Policies
Controversial visit to reporter's home leads to closer look at rapidly changing news media.
The Berkeley Police Department will revamp its media policies, spurred by a controversial March incident in which Chief Michael Meehan dispatched an officer to a reporter's home in the middle of the night to request changes to an article.
The city will pay the Irvine-based Cornerstone Communications to audit the department’s policies beginning this month and continuing till October, the Daily Californian is reporting. Costs could run as high as $24,000.
The department could choose to extend the review after October.
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The department was widely criticized when Meehan sent department spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss to Oakland Tribune reporter Doug Oakley’s home at 12:45 a.m. on March 9. Oakley had written a story about a March 8 town hall meeting at which Meehan addressed the department’s response to a Feb. 18 murder.
The city has already hired one firm, San Francisco-based attorneys Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai, to probe the incident,
