CONSTITUTION WEEK

By Brian Hale

People are finding out that we are not the only place where you face repercussions for liking or laughing at something inappropriate.

There is a lot of confusion in this country right now on the definition of free speech.

We hope to dispel some of that confusion during this next week.

Our mission at Panhandle Scanner is to deliver breaking news in the most honest way possible that does not create division or panic in our community. Most people on this page understand that’s the way we are. However, no matter how hard we try, there are some individuals who prefer to be confrontational over a word or grammar or something else insignificant to the overall point of our post.

This is our statement for Constitution Week and these principles are derived from the ultimate law of the land.

First, we want everyone to understand that we ARE NOT ‘official media’.

With that said, there is no actual license required to be a journalist in the United States.

NOTE : We love our local media outlets and are not speaking directly of anyone in particular in any town. We just want to clarify some things about us and why we are NOT ‘official media’ in some people’s minds.

Official Media is a title arbitrarily given to local outlets that work with local authorities or subscribe to news services like the Associated Press to get the news from them. That’s called mainstream media.

Remember, there is no actual license required to be a journalist in the United States.

We believe investigative journalists should investigate what happened, rather than sit around and wait for a press release a day or two later, or more. Oftentimes we interview the same people that the police interview.

Independent journalists are not official media. We are all proudly independent. We are not owned by anyone, nor directed by anyone other than our conscience, our morals, our experience. In our case, we have set up a board of directors and have literally dozens of top followers who keep us honest.

Finally, although we believe firmly in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it might surprise you that we are NOT FOR ‘unencrypting’ all scanner signals, as some rumors have suggested.

We believe in RESPONSIBLE Scanner ownership and usage, and we will not hesitate to report anyone who abuses access to the information provided, either through the streaming signal we provide, or through any of the ‘scanner properties’. We are SERIOUS about the safety of our Officers, Troopers, and Emergency Personnel everywhere, especially in our own communities.

With a background in information technology security and third party information training in the military, our team understands and places the highest priority on officer or emergency personnel safety.

Rumors from a former disgruntled admin have turned into gigantic lies that so many people want to believe. We have never interfered in a scene, and never encouraged anyone to do so. In fact, most of you see every post we make that says to yield to emergency responders stay out of the way. Despite that clear and consistent warning to the public, we continue to hear that WE are somehow to blame for every individual at their scene. It’s a ridiculous accusation and it’s time to clear the air. We love our firefighters. We absolutely respect and admire their unbelievable dedication and would welcome any invitation they would extend to us to meet face to face to answer any questions. We are confident they would think differently once they got to know us and found out that we’re not this out-of-control evil entity.

Thank you to the departments who know us personally and know we support your every effort. Also, thank you to all police departments, sheriff’s offices and the state patrol, as we have never received any resistance or negative feedback from any of them. #mutualrespect#1stamendment

If you are part of one of the departments that do support us, thank you, thank you! We have never done anything to intentionally harm anyone that is a first responder.

We wish people would truly spread the truth that we would never disrespect a first responder, and we would be the first to apologize if we did accidentally get in the way.

(FYI – banning someone from the page for breaking rules is not being disrespectful. It’s our policy as a private business.)

SINCE we DON’T actually go to the scene 99% of the time, we don’t understand how we are to blame every time. There are other reasons why the lookie loos come lookie-looing…. For instance, the LOUD SIRENS and LARGE fire engines SPEEDING by, and the SMOKE and FIRE and backed up TRAFFIC…. Those are just a FEW reasons why people stop and look at a fire scene. IF there are actually people listening to our delayed signal and jumping in their car and running to a scene and getting in the way, we obviously want to discourage that. That scenario in fact is not a reality! That’s why they follow our page. In fact, Polls show that most listeners are actually First Responder families or friends.

We don’t even have to go to the scene and we will get up close footage from people who happen to be there already.

Blaming Panhandle Scanner for people crowding a scene just isn’t logical. First, the fire departments are amazing at response times, and they receive the call before the public does. (Our live signal is delayed slightly)

How many people do you think can actually beat the fire department to the scene in order to ‘get in the way’?

We actually ceased the practice of going to the scene unless absolutely necessary. We have shifted our focus to following up on the stories that you read about, but never hear what happens.

So please, next time someone tries to blame ‘the scanner’ for interfering in a scene, think about how that grew from a complaint from a disgruntled former admin, into a harmful lie about our business and our mission. We love and respect our First Responders and would never say anything against them or do anything to keep them from doing their job. Please understand, we have only been forced to ban some of them due to their combative nature and lack of mutual respect. That animosity does not come from this direction, and we wish it to cease to help the community unite, not divide.

This statement is an attempt to make peace with our local fire departments and put to rest the rumors that exist. #Unity We love you and we wish to work with you, not against you.

That is our statement on this Constitution Week. We hope it brings unity, not more division. (We’ll see what happens in the comments!)