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Jaideep Shenoy / The Hindu
- The initiative has attracted the attention of international agencies
- LAPD blog enables people to post their comments on developments
- Dakshina Kannada police can only send e-mail to the SP
Mangalore, May 23: One of the largest police forces in the United States - the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) - has taken a leaf out of Dakshina Kannada district police. It started its own official blog - www.lapdblog.org on May 11.
Dakshina Kannada district police launched their blog on December 8, 2005.
While the purpose of launching the blog is well documented, what perhaps has gone unnoticed is that this local initiative has attracted attention from news agencies abroad. Andrew Glazer of Associated Press, Los Angeles, sent an e-mail questionnaire about the blog to B Dayananda, Superintendent of Police, Dakshina Kannada, recently.
"His intent," Dayananda said, "was to make a study about police blogs elsewhere in the world. The e-mail questionnaire sent to me was part of the study for a news report. While the focus of news report available on www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20060519-1052-ca-lapdblog.html is about the official blog of LAPD, there is a reference to our effort in that report along with other such efforts."
Asked about the difference between Dakshina Kannada police blog and that of their counterpart in Los Angeles, Dayananda said in the latter, people could post their comments. The blog moderator can "edit" these comments before posting them on line for viewing and comments by other visitors, he said.
The LAPD blog has a link wherein the authorities there comment on news reports pertaining to the department that appear in print and offer their side of the story. "It is much more interactive in that sense,'' Dayananda said.”Visitors to our blog can do so by getting in touch with me on e-mail. We too have brought in several refinements to our blog," he added.
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