JSO removes scanners from newsrooms

Thursday marked a new era in newsrooms all over Jacksonville.

Around 1:00 pm in the afternoon, a JSO officer came and took police radios, which they leased to media outlets all over the city.  They will also re-encrypt the radio broadcasts, so that dispatch calls cannot be heard by the media, or anyone else.

"The concern we have is not that the information isn't getting to us," says WOKV program director Mike Dorwart,  "it's the information that we might have to relay to listeners that's critical information about big traffic tie-ups, about dangerous situations, or crime in their neighborhood."

The media will now have to rely on Emergency Alert Response System (EARS) brodacasts to hear when police units are called out.  However, EARS broadcasts often take hours to get from the police to newsrooms, if they ever show up at all.

JSO has cited budget, legal, and safety concerns as their primary reasons for removing the radios.