BUFFSCAN
New York Government, Corporate Media Alliance Near Completion of Death Star
06/06/2025
In the looming age of total public safety radio encryption, police scanning must be replaced by something else.
But what if "public safety radio encryption" never actually happens. Welp, in New York State, turns out this may well be the case for our esteemed colleagues of a different form, Corporate Media.
Poised to advance to Governor's desk after some last minute tweaking...
For them, in New York State, unfettered access to public safety push-to-talk voice communication that has been enjoyed by all since the adoption of radio by police and fire, is about to be ensured by New York Assembly Bill A3516 which, as of yesterday, teeters on becoming law. It has cleared legislation and, save for some tweaking here and there, is soon on its way to the governor's desk.
When this happens, anyone the government approves as a journalist using whatever criteria makes sense to the eye of the moment, will be allowed to continue tuning in, gaining the edge in newsgathering over other forms of media such as citizen.
Corporate Media that has seen its entire business model implode over the past 20 or so years, often chasing the content of citizen journalists who report through blogs or social media platforms instead of it itself being the sole source, will absolutely gain from this modern remodeling.
With the eventual enacting of this law Corporate Media is put squarely back into the driver's seat with total control over the bus's door.
The law basically says that any "professional" news entity must be allowed access to encrypted push-to-talk public safety radio which would predominantly be those engaged in the consistent well-resourced act of covering news. Or in other words, the rich people. Or in other words, Corporate Media.
Not you.
Citizen journalists who encounter news as "Johnny on the spot" here and there, won't be privy to the backstory of what they are seeing. And those "Johnnys on the Jump" - people in social media who listen to scanners and either recapitulate on X or attempt to visit news scenes, will be eviscerated out of existence, period.
To be sure, it's great that public safety's march toward a needlessly broad blackout is being challenged. But, somehow, a solution turning news access into currency, literally welding profit and government will in one step, doesn't strike me much as one. For dang up to 60 years now the radio scanning land was free and open to all and now suddenly it's only free to who can afford the overhead of meeting some definition?
If A3516 is the idea of a transparency fix, perhaps "replacing police scanning with something else" should really mean replacing the perception of the citizen journalist so that, collectively, they are regarded as a "professional media body" after all.
What is to stop representatives of BuffScan, Tonowanda Fire Alerts, WNY Fire Alert, Buffalo 716 Street News, Erie County News Blotter, and the many others in our area who listen on and recapitulate news content, from forming a citizen journalist press association and meeting once every six months in someone's basement?
I say nothing! Such a federation would explicitly rely on police public safety radio to continue operations just as much if not more than its corporate form colleagues. Seems like that would qualify everyone for access, or, qualify to advance the argument even if it didn't.
By BuffScan for BuffScan.
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