Saying that the NYPD has a bit of an image problem is a gross understatement. As part of an effort to improve this image, the department will reportedly train officers to be more savvy (and amusing) on Twitter.
According to the New York Post, the NYPD is giving cops an actual handbook on how to use Twitter for comedic purposes:
It goes on to offer tips on how to make people LOL in 140 characters or less, citing real tweets from San Francisco cops as examples. One reads: “Officers just arrested a naked man in the bison paddock in GG [Golden Gate] Park. The bison seemed unimpressed.” By contrast, it tells cops not to post boring, jargon-filled tweets, such as, “Officers responded to an apartment on the 2500 block of Turk St. regarding a burglary.”
The new initiative will now require cops to issue a minimum of four tweets per day, which some feel is too much. "It’s a lot more work … Now I have to worry about social media on top of everything else I have to do," a source reportedly told the Post. There is crime to be fought, after all.
So, in other words, they're devoting 34 pages and an indefinite amount of time to something that's not an exact science. You can't teach someone how to be good at Twitter— they either are, or are they aren't.
Perhaps they should just concern themselves with being good at their jobs in the field of duty, not being 140-character comedians, or potentially committing other horrendous acts of social media failure.
[via New York Post]
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