‘One-man team’ behind OPP social media strategy

Sgt. Kerry Schmidt may be one of the most recognizable faces of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), or at least on their social media.

The Media Relations officer has been adapting the department’s communications strategy to align more closely with the way social media is shaping the way information is shared.

“I’m a one-man team,” he says. “I’m doing my thing with a cell phone and a wire.” 

Often taking the form of 30-second to minute long videos, Schmidt uses the official OPP social media platforms to share safety campaigns, crime trends, and ongoing investigations. He has found this to be an effective way at sharing information quicker, and to a wider audience, than what media scrums or interviews are capable of.

“When something big is going on, everybody wants to know the details. I'll be dealing with 10, 15 phone calls. Whereas I can put out a video with the content, and either way it still tells the same story.”

While these videos tend to include B-roll footage of accident scenes, or surveillance  clips from ongoing investigations, Schmidt also uses them to give viewers a first-person perspective of what he does. The goal of the videos is to streamline communication between the OPP and the public, as well as media outlets that are covering the story. On many occasions, the media will use clips of Schmidt’s videos in their coverage, and  although he is usually not credited, this doesn’t bother him. 

“It’s very simple for me to do it, and hopefully it helps the media”, he says. “You can always take my content, and that's why I give it out to people or put it online and they can all grab it.”

Schmidt refrains from including the names of those involved in an incident in his social media posts, even when media releases do. Posting names runs the risk of misidentification when looking for suspects, and can make it harder for someone to rebuild their life after an investigation. This can also lead to the line between officers enforcing the law and shaming the public to blur, making it harder for the police to do their jobs.

Posting videos and images to social media for awareness may be Schmidt’s strategy to increase communication, but it has garnered him backlash in the past. In 2017, a petition describing him as a hypocrite, circulated in the trucking community. Alleging that Schmidt did not take his own advice when it came to not posting photos of accident  scenes online, the petition called for his removal. It was never followed up on and his official statement could not be traced to a source.

While filming live on the scene of an accident comes with problems, Schmidt sees these as ways to maintain police transparency. Unintentionally filming sensitive content is not something he wants to do, but when it happens, a correction is issued immediately and the post is removed. In doing so, Schmidt hopes to get ahead of potential public outcry, rather than hiding the truth until it is uncovered.

“If it's not good news for us, it's better for us to take that criticism now, as opposed to a week from now, or a month from now, when it blows up even worse."