Join us March 21, 2019 at 1:00 p.m. EDT as we welcome Julie E. Buchwald, Community Relations Coordinator and Special Investigator General for the Office of the Inspector for the Los Angeles Police Department to discuss best practices and effective strategies for civilian oversight agencies when working with the media.

One of the more significant challenges for civilian oversight agencies is determining how to best interface with the media – both generally, on a daily basis, and when a critical incident strikes.

What, then, are some best practices for handling public outreach – specifically to the media – for a civilian oversight agency? Julie E. Buchwald, Community Relations Coordinator and Special Investigator for the Office of the Inspector General of the LAPD in Los Angeles, will share one tested methodology for creating and sustaining a media strategy, which can be generally adapted to any civilian oversight agency.

Ms. Buchwald will discuss best practices for both direct dealings with the media (i.e., responding to media inquiries, speaking with reporters, and communicating your office’s message) and indirect dealings with the media (i.e., social media, sending out reports, and more.) In addition, Ms. Buchwald will outline some steps that can be taken in advance to prepare for the inevitable critical incident.

We know that successfully navigating relationships with the media is a topic that every oversight agency will confront at some point in time. In this era of public accountability and transparency, knowing how to best interact with a few trusted members of the media can be immensely useful. More specifically, having established media relationships and carrying out your office’s media plan can be critical to how your office is perceived by the community and can impact the very reputation of the office itself.

Ultimately, the best chance you have as an office to be accurately and fairly represented in the news is to have some influence over how the news is written and broadcast, and how the work that you do will be communicated and represented. Contact with the media will enable that to occur such that your office and the Department you oversee are covered in the most balanced manner possible. RSVP to learn more.

Please note that this event is open only to the first 100 registrants.  We therefore recommend that you register early to guarantee your spot. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to complete the the final step to ensure that you are registered and able to join the webinar.

*Those who particiate in the webinar will be able to apply .75 hours towards their initial CPO certification or renewal.  For verification purposes, and in order to receive CPO credit for this event, you must be registered for the event as an individual. For more information on the CPO program, please visit http://www.nacole.org/cpo_credential_program.

Speakers:

Julie E. Buchwald

Ms. Buchwald has been with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the City of Los Angeles since June 2005.  She is currently the OIG’s Community Relations Coordinator.  In this capacity, she is responsible for public outreach, social media, and other community engagements.  She has worked in several different areas of the office over the years -- the Complaints Unit, the OIG's Special Projects Unit, and the Use of Force Unit, where she continues to review public reports involving officer-involved shootings and other significant uses of force. 

Prior to joining the OIG, Ms. Buchwald was a policy advisor to former Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn.  In this position, she crafted various initiatives relating to the City's Police, Fire, and Emergency Preparedness Departments.   Among other assignments, she monitored implementation of LAPD’s federal civil rights Consent Decree, managed critical incidents by coordinating resources from the City's Emergency Operations Center, and organized press conferences to announce new public safety initiatives on a regular basis.

Ms. Buchwald received her law degree from the University of Southern California Law School in 2000, where she was Class President.  She completed her undergraduate studies in Philosophy and International Studies in 1997 at Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois.

Ms. Buchwald clerked for the Honorable Simeon R. Acoba, Jr., who is now retired from the Hawai'i Supreme Court, in Honolulu, Hawai'i, from 2000 to 2001.