JEDDAH, 23 June 2006 — Jeddah police chief Brig. Misfer Al-Zehami has called upon the media to exercise care when covering crime stories by only taking information from police sources and reporting on such stories only after the police have finished their investigations, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported yesterday.
Col. Misfer Al-Juaeed of the media department at Jeddah police, said that publishing news of crimes without waiting for investigations to be completed and without quoting credible police sources confuse and negatively affect probe.
He said, “Some criminal cases are under investigation and publishing information about them only help the criminals and make the job of the police even harder.”
Al-Juaeed added, “Getting one-sided stories from eyewitnesses is not credible. You need to have correct information from authentic police sources who sometimes delay announcing their conclusions until they have ascertained the complete and full picture.” Al-Juaeed gave an example of a report published recently in many Saudi newspapers about a young Pakistani woman who was allegedly raped by her father.
The colonel said that although the police investigating the case have not fully completed their inquiries but they have found the story to be quite different to what has been reported in the press.
