The Press Department

The Press Department of the Federal Police manages communication with the media. It is therefore responsible for contacts with the press and speaks on behalf of the Federal Police. In this framework, the Press Department deals with journalists’ requests for information, interviews or reports in relation with the activities of the Federal Police. The Press Department also advises members from other departments of the Federal Police who wish, for example, to give an interview, to organise a press conference or to disseminate a press release.

In order to perform these tasks, the Press Department is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The journalists and members of the Federal Police who are contacted by the press or wish to communicate with the media can therefore reach the Press Department at any moment.

Contact with the Press Department

The Press Department of the Federal Police answers questions from journalists, police departments and citizens.

In 2010, it received 3 641 questions, which means a 21,2% increase compared to 2009 (3 003 questions). Compared to 2004, the amount of questions has risen by 86,3%.

2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
1,954	2,259	2,679	2,371	3,003	3,641

1 Questions from the media
In 2010, the Press Department of the Federal Police dealt with 2 800 questions asked by journalists.

Belgian media

2 697 questions were asked by Belgian journalists (all media taken together)
Het Laatste Nieuws is the daily paper that asked the largest number of questions in 2010 (+/- 6,56% of the total). As for television, the largest number of questions was asked by the channel VTM (233 or 8,63% of the total). VRT is the national radio station that asked the most questions (191 questions).

Written press		Number of questions	% in the total number of questions asked by the Belgian media
1	Het Laatste Nieuws	177	6,56%
2	Belga	151	5,59%
3	De Morgen	142	5,26%
4	Nieuwsblad	137	5,07%
5	Sudpresse	128	4,74%

 

TV channels		Number of questions	% in the total number of questions asked by the Belgian media
1	VTM	233	8,63%
2	VRT	183	6,78%
3	RTBF	165	6,11%
4	RTL-TVI	80	2,96%

 

Radio channels		Number of questions	% in the total number of questions asked by the Belgian media
1	VRT Radio	191	7,08%
2	Q-Music/Joe FM	120	4,44%
3	RTBF Radio	91	3,37%
4	Bel-RTL	31	1,14%

Foreign media

103 questions were asked by foreign journalists from 19 different countries (including France, the Netherlands, Great-Britain, the United-States, Germany but also Sweden, Russia, Albania and Brazil).

Country	Number of press questions
1. France	36
2. The Netherlands	21
3. Germany	13

Top 10 of the most frequently asked questions

The ten most popular categories of questions asked by journalists vary from year to year but several of them are recurrent. More than 26% of the questions asked by journalists dealt with road safety and computer crime. So, just like in 2009, these two topics were the most popular ones in 2010.

	2008		2009		2010
1	Road safety	381	Road safety	407	Road safety	585
2	Federal Computer Crime Unit	199	Federal Computer Crime Unit	183	Federal Computer Crime Unit	183
3	Missing Persons Unit	100	Railway Police	82	Railway Police	134
4	Thefts	94	Traffic Police	77	Thefts	101
5	Railway Police	86	Crime/National General Database statistics	66	Traffic Police	81
					Crime/National General Database statistics	81
6	Traffic Police	84	Thefts	56	Violence against persons	61
7	Drugs	77	Waterway police	52	Drugs	59
8	Crime/National General Database statistics	75	Missing Persons Unit	42	Waterway police	55
9	Violence against persons	68	Drugs	41	Scientific Police	44
					Air Support Unit	44
10	Terrorisme	59	Violence against persons	28	Trafficking in human beings	39
			DVI	28

It appears that the number of questions related to road safety has grown exponentially from 407 in 2009 to 585 in 2010, which means an increase of 43%. Of course, these questions deal with a great variety of topics, such as traffic accidents, control policy, DAH resources, road traffic regulations, etc.

The National General Database (BNG/ANG) and its rich content in terms of crime statistics are increasingly known among the media, which ask more and more questions about these statistics.

2. Questions from police departments
Le Service presse a également été contacté à 685 reprises par différents services de la police fédérale ainsi que par des zones de police locale :
- 216 contacts or 31,5% of the phone calls were meant to inform the press officer about an event or an incident and thereby to enable him/her to answer questions of the media;
- 21% of the questions were related to co-operation and/or authorisation requests for an interview or a report;
- 12,8% of the questions were requests for photocopies of press articles, reports or extracts of television news reports;
- 12,4% of the questions were requests for support in writing press releases or in drafting communication plans, or questions about the Public relations Department;
- 10,5% of the questions were asked to receive advice on contacts with the media;
- 3,6% of the questions were requests for information on the Federal Police;
 
3. Questions from citizens
In 2010, the Press Department was contacted by 156 citizens. These people were for example spokespersons from various offices or students asking questions in the framework of their doctorate dissertation.

 

Press releases

The Press Department of the Federal Police disseminated 237 press releases in 2010.
By comparison, 321 press releases were disseminated in 2008 and 227 in 2009.
63,7% of those press releases dealt with the priorities set out in the National Security Plan (PNS/NVP) 2008-2011.

Each press release covers one or more priorities. The most frequently covered security phenomena / priorities in 2010 were road safety, drugs and crime against property.

Security phenomenon PNS 2008-2011	Number of press releases dealing with this phenomenon	Subtopics*
Road Safety	89	Speeding	32
		Impaired driving	43
		Lorries	14
Drugs	61	Dismantling	2
		Seizures Brussels Airport	6
		Seizures others	24
		Drug trafficking	29
Crime against property	55	General	53
		Metal thefts	2
Crime with violence	21
Financial crime	15
Trafficking and smuggling of human beings	11
Environment	11	Illegal waste transport	10
		Animal transport control	1
Missing Persons Unit	9
Street nuisance and crime	6
Computer crime	3
Terrorism	2
Juvenile crime	1
Intrafamily violence	0
Other topics	60
Invitations	43
EU Presidency	23

* Several subtopics can be dealt with in one press release.

 

As far as road safety is concerned, special emphasis was put on impaired driving (driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs) as 43 releases dealt with this type of control action. Beside road safety, the other most frequently covered topics were the following: speeding, follow-up of various traffic offences and road transport sector.
The press releases on drugs mostly dealt with drug trafficking and drug seizures (carried out during general control actions or specific control actions against drugs trafficking).
As for crime against property, 53 releases focused mainly on itinerant offender groups and on home and garage burglaries. The other two press releases specifically dealt with metal thefts.

Press conferences

In 2010, the Press Department organised 25 press conferences. The issues covered at these conferences were varied. They included for example the inauguration of the new buildings of the Federal Police in Ghent (Groendreef), the football fraud contact form, the 15th anniversary of the Missing Persons Unit and the presentation of several projects and events set up by the Belgian police services in the framework of the Belgian Presidency of the EU.

EU Presidency

Belgium held the Presidency of the EU Council from July to December 2010. For the Press Department, this was an exciting challenge which, of course, created extra workload, not only during the Presidency itself, but also during the several months of preparation leading up to the event. As the issue of Europe is still far from many citizens’ daily preoccupations, the Press department had to constantly look for exciting and original angles from which to approach it, trying to place the European message at the centre of public attention.

In the framework of the Belgian Presidency, the Press Department disseminated 23 press releases and organised 10 press events in collaboration with the Department of International Police Collaboration (CGI). These events were traditional press conferences but also police operations in the field during which journalists were invited. Then 41 questions were asked by the press in the framework of the Presidency.

Special efforts were also made to make the international-oriented press releases available in English and German and to disseminate them within the EU member States. This was made possible thanks to a network of Europol police press officers.