his is the story of how the dead body didn’t come to be in Moore’s Meadow. Despite all kinds of rumours flying around, RCMP Const. Gary Godwin says, unequivocally, that the police have not found a body in Moore’s Meadow. We at the Free Press, unwittingly, had a role to play in the rumours.
It all started about a month ago when Black Press editors, including Free Press editor Bill Phillips, met with RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass and some of the other brass at headquarters in Vancouver. One of the things they unveiled to the press at that time was a new Web site. That was on a Tuesday. On Friday, media liaison officers for the RCMP were called down to the Lower Mainland to train on how to use the new Web site.
On Sunday, Free Press staff checked the new Web site and saw that a local press release had been posted stating that someone walking their dog had discovered a body in Moore’s Meadow. We immediately posted the news release to our Web site and dispatched a photographer to the scene.
There was some surprise when our photographer could find no police activity at Moore’s Meadow. We double-checked the Web site to make sure we had the right location. We did, but no one was there.
In the meantime, the RCMP phone lines were starting to burn up. The brass in the Lower Mainland, who monitor the media, saw a story about a body being found in Prince George but the local constabulary had not briefed the higher-ups, which is correct protocol in these matters.
The RCMP weren’t the only one who noticed the story. We had posted the story to the Breaking News section of our Web site, which meant it was immediately picked up by BCLocalNews.com, which re-posted the story on Black Press Web sites across the province. The news spread fast and the family of a man missing in Terrace feared the worst.
The RCMP called us to see where we had got the story from and were somewhat chagrined to learn that we had gotten the information from their Web site. As it turns, out, the story had been posted in error. Part of the RCMP training two days before involved getting officers to write a press release, which they made up on the spot, and then post it to the site. The press releases, which were made up on the spot, weren’t supposed to actually get posted to the site. The Moore’s Meadow body one, however, did.
Lesson learned. In these days of instant communication and instant news, mistakes can also be made in an instant. The rumour of a body being found have percolated around town ever since.